


stranger, stranger

by blueskiddoo



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack Treated Seriously, Didn't Know They Were Dating, M/M, Mistaken Identity, Online Dating
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:21:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 33,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23744485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueskiddoo/pseuds/blueskiddoo
Summary: “Sure,” Georgie says, still laughing at him. At leastsomeoneis having fun. “Don’t you have assistants for that kind of thing?”“Yes, but…” He huffs, scratching the back of his neck. “I wasn’t going to ask one of them to download an app called...Lover? Lov-rrr? I don’t know how you say it.” He flaps his hands dismissively. “There are--unions and such. It wouldn’t be appropriate.”*jon makes a fake account on a dating app to investigate a statement. tim sets martin up with fake account on a dating app to boost his self-confidence. it goes exactly how you might expect.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 827
Kudos: 1653





	1. Chapter 1

_hey_  
_you are a horror_  
_hottie_

“Tim!” Martin squawks, lunging for his phone. “Just because it’s not real doesn’t mean you can… _mess around with it!_ ”

Tim laughs and lets him pull the phone from his hands, almost tipping back out of his chair in the process. “It wasn’t me!” He says, hands raised innocently. “It was autocorrect! It’s not my fault you talk more about horrors than hotties. Which--” He points. “--is exactly why we’re doing this in the first place.”

Martin gives him what he hopes is a withering look, clutching his phone to his chest and trying to ignore the blush crawling up his neck. He sneaks a peek down at his phone. Can you delete messages? No. Of course not. That’s simply not how his life goes. 

It’s just a dummy account anyways, or so Tim assures him. No profile picture, no information. No display name except for _A_ , and probably only because the app doesn’t let you register without one. The perfect opportunity to practice his--

_Ugh_. Martin buries his face in his phone, trying to become one with it. 

“Oh, come on. Why are you so embarrassed?” Tim says, shaking him bodily by the shoulders. “Sasha, tell Martin to stop being so embarrassed.”

“Some of us are working, you know,” Sasha’s voice comes from the direction of her desk, but he can tell she’s smiling. “You shouldn’t be embarrassed, Martin.”

“See?” Tim says. Martin looks up just enough to see his I-told-you-so look. “People use these apps all the time. It’s not a big deal.”

Martin grimaces. “Did you have to pick one named… _Lovr_?”

Tim shrugs. “It’s new. And it’s probably not going to last very long. So this will be the training wheels, and when you’re ready we can move you up to the big leagues.” He clasps his shoulder and Martin sways. “I let you use a fake name, didn’t I?”

“You did…” He says. Actually, they’d gone through several fake names--including Marty McFly, Marto Lovechild, and Mario Bario for some ungodly reason--until they’d settled on _M._ Which probably makes him look like just as much of a fake account as A, except at least _he_ has a profile. Sure, the picture is of his cat and he’s claiming to live in Edinburgh, but the rest of it is more or less true. 

“I just think this is all...silly,” Martin says, his cheeks burning now. “I’m fine. _Really_ , I’m fine. I don’t need a dating app.”

Now even _Sasha_ is giving him a look. Traitor. 

“ _Really._ ” He says again. Weakly. 

“What you need is self-confidence,” Sasha says, finally putting down the file she was pretending to read. “Talk to a few people. Be yourself. It might actually be good for you.”

“And if you happened to get over other weird, pointless crushes while you’re at it…” Tim offers. 

“ _Shut up._ ” Martin hisses, and he’s got to look like a stoplight now. “I don’t--that’s completely--” 

“Martin.”

Martin jumps, his knee slamming into the underside of his desk hard enough that his eyes water. He turns to find Jon at the end of the hall, a fresh cup of coffee in his hands and an annoyed look on his face. “Yes?” He squeaks. 

Jon’s frown deepens. “Have you finished that followup on the Arbuckle statement?” 

Somehow _no, I got distracted watching Tim download a shady dating app onto my phone_ doesn’t feel like an appropriate answer. “...working on it!” he says brightly instead. 

“Hm.” Jon grunts and he drifts away again, back toward his office. 

Martin waits until he hears the door click shut again before he drops his head onto his desk.

“Yeahhhh,” Tim says. “You’re right, Martin. You’re doing absolutely fantastic as-is.”

Martin sighs into the cheap wood surface. “Fine,” he mumbles. “ _Fine._ ”

*

“Who are you and _what have you done with Jonathan Sims?”_

Several disastrous things happen at once. 

The Admiral darts across the living room, causing Jon to run into the coffee table shins-first, knocking over a glass of water onto his bag, which is propped open with several file folders of paper within range. It’s like the world’s most pointless Rube Goldberg machine. 

“ _Shit,_ ” he hisses, snatching up his bag and shaking the water out onto the rug, his shin still smarting where it met the sharp corner of the coffee table. 

“Oh! Sorry!” Georgie puts her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide. “Alright, that’s not what I intended to happen, for the record.”

Jon shoots her a flat look, smacking water off the topmost file. They’re a little damp, but the folders took the worst of it. And honestly, if the Institute loses a file or two--well, literally who would know besides him? It’s not as if Gertrude tried even slightly to keep track of them all. 

He should have left them at work, as Georgie has been pointedly reminding him all night. But, considering he would probably still be _at_ work if she hadn’t guilted him into coming over (“You’re going to forget what the sun looks like if you don’t leave that dungeon once or twice.”), so it had seemed like a fair compromise. Not that she’s let him touch them since he stepped through the door anyway.

“What _did_ you intend exactly, besides giving me a heart attack?” He says.

“Oh. Well.” A grin blooms across her face and Jon knows that he’s in trouble. 

His eyes dart downward. “Is that--is that my phone?” 

The grin drops into a look of perfect innocence, her eyes almost as wide as the Admiral’s when he decides it’s time for second dinner. “You left it on the table,” she says. “I was going to bring it to you…”

“Give it to me.”

“...but I couldn’t help but notice you have a notification...”

“Georgie!”

“ _Lovr_ , Jon? Really?” She laughs as he snatches it out of her hands, almost tripping over the coffee table in the opposite direction. “Seriously, did you lose a bet? Even in the universe where _you_ used _dating apps_ I’d hope you’d be a little less trashy about it.”

Jon dismisses the notifications without reading them. He’d _thought_ he’d turned those off, but the stupid app barely works. Or maybe he’s the one that’s the problem. Since starting as Head Archivist he’s gotten tragically familiar with analog technology to the detriment of his ability to navigate the digital world. 

“It’s for a statement,” he says scathingly. “I had some follow up to do and you can’t access the app without an account.”

A for Archivist was a bit of a reach, but he certainly wasn’t putting his name anywhere on there. Not the least of which because of the app’s alleged connection to the disappearance of a young woman. 

“Sure,” Georgie says, still laughing at him. At least _someone_ is having fun. “Don’t you have assistants for that kind of thing?”

“Yes, but…” He huffs, scratching the back of his neck. “I wasn’t going to ask one of them to download an app called...Lover? Lov-rrr? I don’t know how you say it.” He flaps his hands dismissively. “There are--unions and such. It wouldn’t be appropriate.” 

More like he’d rather die than ask them. Or say the word lovr out loud ever again, preferably. If Tim heard him, death would probably be preferable.

“Right…” Georgie squints at him, a smile still teasing at her lips. “Well, it looks like you got a bite, hot stuff. Might want to check it out.”

Jon snorts. “Georgie, if you ever catch me actually using this thing, you have my blessing to mercy kill me,” he says. “Assuming that whatever ax murderer I was talking to hasn’t done it already.”

*

He doesn’t actually want to check the message, but there’s an annoying little red bubble on the corner of the app that won’t go away until he’s viewed them. Jon frowns at the little _3_ like he can wish it away, bathed in the glow of his phone screen as he lies in bed. Georgie kept him out later than he meant to be and he needs to be at work early tomorrow, but the red bubble caught his eye as he went to double check his alarm and it’s been nagging at him ever since.

 _Fine._ He huffs and clicks the app. 

The kitschy pink background fills his screen, nearly blinding him in the dark. The little notification continues to haunt him, now hovering over an envelope in the top right corner. He jabs it with a little more force than necessary. 

M:  
_hey_  
_you are a horror_  
_hottie_

He has to admit that’s not what he expected. 

Jon frowns and clicks the user’s icon before he can think better of it. He’d expected a few messages from bots and generalized sort of perverts, the kind that would message an account with no information on it, probably because they’re looking for fresh kidneys to harvest. Not to say that M isn’t an organ trafficker, but for all appearances he also appears to be a cat that lives in Scotland and likes poetry. Unfortunate. 

He hesitates, and once again his fingers move faster than his mind.

A:  
_...Thank you?_

He bites the tip of his tongue, squinting up at his phone, and he can’t help just a little chuckle. Just a little one. It’s not even a joke, but something about it tickles him. Who says he can’t have fun?

He promptly drops his phone on his face.

*

Jon’s at work the next day when he notices a new notification.

He hesitates, his finger hovering over the screen. It’s different in the stark light of day, even if there’s not much of that to be found in the archive. He really should leave it be. Engaging with some stranger on an even stranger dating app isn’t going to help him with his research on the disappearance. 

Well. It might. 

M:  
_oh my god i’m so sorry  
that was my friend just being stupid he thought you were a fake account i swear  
sorry!_

There’s a statement waiting for him, the tape recorder already rolling, but he’s curious now.

A:  
_This is a fake account._

A reply, only moments later.

M:  
_...sorry?_

A:  
_It’s for work purposes._

M:  
_oh! i see  
well, sort of_

Ah...he said too much. Now _he’s_ somehow the weird one, as if unironically using an app called lovr didn’t already set a high threshold. He sighs and moves to put his phone aside.

M:  
_mine’s a bit too, i suppose  
my coworker made it for me, i mean  
i guess that’s not really the same_

Jon frowns at his phone.

A:  
_Your coworker?  
That’s a little unprofessional._

M:  
_oh, it’s ok! he means well  
we’re friends and all  
friendly? something like that  
sorry, i should leave you alone  
good luck with your work!_

Jon eyes the statement. Is it possible that the tape recorder actually looks a little impatient?

A:  
_Thank you._

He sets his phone aside, flipping it screen-side down, to prevent any further distractions. “Statement of Martha Thompson, regarding an infestation of moths in her home. Original statement taken March second, 2007.” He clears his throat. “Statement begins.”

*

Three days pass before Jon gets another notification, long enough that he’s nearly forgotten about it. Truthfully, the disappearance statement has slid to a bit of the back of his workload, and what little thought he dedicates to the lovr app went with it. In a mess of statements about serial killers and haunted dolls, a slightly stranger than average disappearance doesn’t make much of a splash.

He’s home sick that day, slouched miserably on his couch and flipping idly through the paperwork he managed to sneak with him. It’s just a little cold, barely more than a stuffy head. Elias had been inordinately pleased with his dedication to coming in to work, but he’d sent him home anyways with orders to rest. 

Which would be easier, if his head didn’t ache so damn much.

His phone screen lights up with the new message, catching his eye from where it sits precariously close to the edge of the couch. He eyeballs it warily. He can tell from the notification that it’s from the lovr app. 

Finally, curiosity wins out and he leans across the couch, paperwork crinkling beneath him as he snags his phone and swipes open the message. 

M:  
_sorry, me again  
can you do me a favor and just chat with me a bit so I can pretend i’m using this correctly?  
my coworker wants me to ‘show my work’ haha  
it’s ok if you don’t want to_

Jon types a reply before M can ramble any further. As soon as he starts, M’s typing bubble drops away.

A:  
_Are we not chatting right now?_

M:  
_i mean like  
you know, chatting  
like you’re supposed to do on these apps_

Jon pulls a face.

A:  
_Like sexting?_

The response is immediate.

M:  
_NO. god no.  
definitely not_

A:  
_I wasn’t going to, for the record._

M:  
_ok let’s just...move on from that  
it’s just, you know, getting to know one another  
here, i’ll start  
do you have any hobbies?_

There’s a long and troubling moment where Jon can’t think of a single thing he does for fun. 

A:  
_I work a lot._

M:  
_work isn’t really a hobby_

A:  
_I’m a busy man._

M:  
_so you’re a man! ok interesting!_

A:  
_Is that usually a topic covered in ‘chatting’?_

M:  
_i mean, most people put it in their profile, but sometimes i guess_

Jon tries to snort and ends up sneezing instead.

A:  
_I’m starting to see why I don’t do it very often._

M:  
_haha, don’t let me turn you off of it, i’m just not very good at it  
that’s why i’m stuck here i suppose  
conspiring with strangers to trick my friends into thinking I have social skills_

A:  
_It could be worse.  
You could be a man with no hobbies._

M:  
_haha true!  
oh, that was a joke! i didn’t know you did jokes_

A:  
_Don’t get used to it.  
Is that enough ‘chatting’ for your coworker?_

M:  
_i think i can work with that  
thanks! (: _

*

"Hmm." Tim tips his head thoughtfully from his position on top of Martin's desk, his legs swinging lackadaisically. Jon has been out sick for two days now and the entire archive has fallen into anarchy it seems, largely in that Tim has declared it open season on Martin's love life. "Why is this a screenshot? Why can't I see the whole conversation?" He swipes at the screen like it's going to change somehow.

"Because I don't want you dissecting all of my personal conversations?" Martin offers lightly, plucking his phone back out of Tim's hands before he gets any ideas about just opening the lovr app himself. 

Tim scoffs. “Boring.” He leans back, planting his hands on all the paperwork Martin is resolutely ignoring. “Speaking of which, you have such a _type._ It’s appalling.” 

“Oh no,” Sasha says. “Oh, Martin. Tell me it isn’t true.”

Martin huffs, flustered. “I do not--I do not have a _type_ of any sort.”

Tim clears his throat theatrically. “‘Do you have any hobbies?’ ‘I work a lot. I’m a busy man”,” he recites in a flat, droning voice.

“I _will_ shove you off of there,” Martin threatens, kicking Tim’s feet from where they’re messing with his filing cabinet now. 

“Mar- _tin_ ,” Sasha sighs, putting her chin in her hand. “You’re supposed to be getting _over_ Jon, not going and finding a new one.”

“Will you shh?!” Martin hisses, his face going red, not for the first time that day. 

“What? He can’t hear you,” Tim says. “Unless he’s got more of those tape recorders lying around.”

They’re all quiet for a moment too long.

“Anyway,” Tim says. “You’re going to have to try a little harder, Martin. But don’t worry--Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all.”

*

Two days home sick trips right into the weekend and Georgie threatens him with bodily harm if he tries to go into work on a Saturday, especially when his nose is still dripping pathetically. He's run out of work to do and he can't think of a way to convince someone to bring him more that would actually go well.

Which leaves the Lovr Disappearance.

Which is a stupid name for it, but not every mystery gets something headline-worthy, he supposes. Personally, he'd rather never be found than be associated with the app in any way. 

He's already spent more time on it than he ever would have guessed or, really, preferred. But he's not quite well yet, and every time he tries to read his attention span starts to slip until he finds himself staring at walls, wondering if he should finally get around to painting them something a little brighter. At least this feels like he's doing something, even if he's pretty sure the disappeared woman is well gone by now.

A:  
_Have you ever encountered anyone strange on this app?_

M:  
_only you!  
only you at all I mean! not that you're strange!  
well..._

A:  
_Oh, very funny.  
I'm trying to investigate. _

That's a bold way of putting it when he's laid diagonally across his bed, still in his pajamas with a crumpled tissue on his chest. But no one has to know about that part. Preferably no one will know about _any_ of these parts. 

M:  
_oh right! this is all a work thing  
what do you do?  
if you don't mind me asking_

Hm. There's no point in being honest, especially if it could lead back to the institute. M might seem normal for the moment, but who knows the type that apps like these attract. He doesn't need anyone knocking on the institute's door looking for him.

A:  
_A detective._

Not wholly untrue, right?

M:  
_haha. riiiight_

Jon frowns, sitting up. What's that supposed to mean? 

A:  
_Problem?_

M:  
_of course not  
i'm an astronaut_

Ah. Jon's frown turns into a scowl. He doesn't believe him. Which shouldn't bother him--what does it matter what he thinks?--but it does. Just a little bit. What's so unbelievable about him being a detective? Is there a--a _vibe_ he’s putting off incorrectly? 

A:  
_I think an astronaut would have a slightly better grasp on proper capitalization._

M:  
_hey, this is a choice i’m making!  
it’s an aesthetic_

A:  
_What?_

M:  
_it means i’m cool! trust me_

A:  
_I suppose I have no choice._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this trope has been done a billion times before in a billion different ways but sometimes you need comfort food during these trying times. inspired by [this post](https://givemeahug.tumblr.com/post/615777223586217984/hilariousgrindr-you-were-closer-the-first-time/) and my [friend's](corpsesoldier.tumblr.com/) dumb joke. 
> 
> I'm on tumblr at [divineatrophy](https://divineatrophy.tumblr.com/) and twitter at [blueskiddoodle!](twitter.com/blueskiddoodle/)


	2. Chapter 2

Monday is...well, it’s a Monday, which says about all there is to say about that. But, as far as Mondays go, it’s really...not that bad. 

Then again, it’s only 8:30 AM and there’s still plenty of time for things to go wrong, but Martin’s trying not to think about that for once. He’s right on time for work, and that was with enough time to swing by his favorite cafe and get a coffee, with extra whipped cream just as a treat. He saw a stray cat outside his building that let him scratch its head and a pregnant woman smiled at him on the train when he gave her his seat. 

And...alright, Monday is good because the weekend was good. And the weekend was good because, in between errands and general good-natured puttering around the house, he spent it fielding questions from A on that stupid app.

Which continues to be a stupid app, for the record. He actually put in a smidge of effort, just so he didn’t feel guilty about lying to Tim. As completely unnecessary as it might be, Tim _did_ only want to help. Unfortunately for all parties involved, lovr is an app populated almost exclusively by the strangest people on earth. After his third attempted conversation that ended with ‘feet pics?’, Martin decided it was best not to venture into the wider pool of matches lovr had to offer. 

Which left A as his only option. To be fair, Martin didn’t intend to use him to placate Tim--except for that first time--but...he liked talking to A. Genuinely, shockingly enjoyed it, especially considering that he’s yet to count A as an exception to the deep _strangeness_ of lovr’s user base. He is strange, but at least in a way that’s fun. 

Martin bites the tip of his tongue as he shoulders his way through the institute’s front doors, his coffee in one hand and phone in the other, restlessly scrolling through their message history. A is absolutely not a detective, he can’t be, but it’s fun pretending. All weekend, every few hours or so, he’d get a message with some strange question or that about the app. Not that he had any answers, typically, but the banter was fun. Or flirting? _Was_ it flirting? Certainly not--

And then the day goes very bad, very quickly. 

Too focused on his phone screen, he doesn't realize that someone is already waiting for the elevator. He also doesn't realize that he’s on a collision course for this person. He definitely doesn't notice that this person is Jonathan Sims.

Until, of course, the ensuing crash. 

His phone goes flying in one direction and his coffee in the other, and he thanks whatever merciful god there is that he invested in a refillable thermos--for the environment, of course--because at least it stays contained. He’s vaguely aware of this as he jumps backwards, both hands, suddenly free, slapped over his mouth.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” Martin squeaks from behind his hands. He drops them long enough to make vague patting motions in Jon’s direction, as if to make sure he’s in one piece but not stupid enough to actually touch him. At least he’s still standing, with a pissed off expression on his face. All normal then. “So sorry! I wasn’t paying attention!”

“No, you weren’t,” Jon agrees waspishly. 

Ah. Alright, that’s fair this time. Martin smiles sheepishly and scrambles to rescue his thermos, which has rolled against the closed elevator door. And has a crack in the lid now. Damn. He only bought it a couple of weeks ago. 

“Really, Martin, you need to look where you’re going,” Jon says, reaching down to pick something up, “not playing around on this stupid--”

Phone. 

_Phone._

_**Phone.** _

One thought crystalizes inside Martin’s mind, completely removed from time and as certain as he’s ever been: if Jon Sims sees the lovr app open on his phone, he’s going to jump off a fucking bridge.

So he does the only thing he can do. He throws himself bodily at Jon for the second time in as many minutes. 

It’s really quite impressive--Sasha shows him the security footage later. Martin’s never been much of a sports man, but he manages to launch himself horizontally across the lobby, nimbly snatch the phone out of Jon’s hands, and subsequently land face first onto the floor. Where he lies, his nose throbbing, and takes a moment to marinate in his misfortunate. 

“Martin…?” Jon actually sounds--well, maybe concerned isn’t the word. Confused? Mortified? Incredulous? All pretty fair reactions. 

“Tripped,” Martin mumbles against the cold marble tile, his phone safely wedged underneath him.

*

“So, let me get this straight.” Tim is sitting on his desk again, which is becoming a strange habit. He’s actually started leaving the space empty, so at least none of his things get sat on. “You decided that eating shit in the middle of the lobby was _less_ embarrassing than Jon seeing this dating app--which, by the way, I _assure you_ he would not recognize--open on your phone?”

“Yes,” Martin says without hesitation. Actually, his nose is more than a little swollen, so it comes out a bit more like _yehd._

“Okay,” Tim says. “Just making sure we’re on the same page.”

*

A:  
 _I can’t imagine the perpetrator stalked her by hacking the app. Who would put that much information into this thing?_

M:  
_ah, sorry, i’m not up to 20 questions today i think  
bad day at work ):_

A:  
_Ah, I see.  
Do you want to...talk about it?_

M:  
_do YOU want to talk about it??_

A:  
_I’m not the one who had a bad day._

Not strictly true, after Martin decided to start his first week back post-cold with a strangely violent morning. Martin was jumpy (and incompetent and unreliable and--) on a good day, but he outdid himself today. Jon, as with most things to pertaining Martin Blackwood, did his best to put it out of his mind.

Now he’s sitting at his desk, long after he should have gone home for the night. He should be focusing on all the work he’s trying to catch up on from the week before. He doesn’t know what possessed him to start poking at the disappearance mystery right _now._ Perhaps, annoyingly, he’s gotten a little used to the conversation. 

He drums his fingers against the desk, staring as M’s typing bubble undulates. It’s a stupid distraction, one he doesn’t need, especially since now he’s feeling like an idiot for sending the first message at all. Literally why does he care, so what if some stranger doesn't want to talk to him tonight--

M:  
_I made a fool of myself  
as usual  
literally right in front of my boss  
-_-  
sorry--that’s like, an exasperated face_

A:  
_I know what an emoticon is.  
I’m not, in fact, a thousand years old._

M:  
_i really do not know with you!_

A:  
_Anyway, I’m sorry that happened to you.  
I’m sure it probably wasn’t that bad._

M:  
_oh, it was_

A:  
_Your boss probably didn’t even notice?_

M:  
_absolutely, definitely did notice  
he as two eyes, after all  
i know this because he was staring daggers at me_

A:  
_You just don’t want to be helped, do you?_

M:  
_nope!  
stewing in misery, please and thank you_

A:  
_Fine.  
...Once my boss answered my phone call thinking that I was his husband._

M:  
_...no_

A:  
_Yes. Unfortunately.  
It wasn’t bad in the way you might think.  
Much...stranger._

M:  
_how...actually nevermind_

A:  
_Good call._

M:  
_is this normally how you make people feel better?_

A:  
_You said you didn’t want to feel better.  
You could at least enjoy some schadenfreude._

M:  
_i guess there is something comforting in knowing you’re not the only one whose lifes gone to shit_

A:  
_Sometimes I think that’s my entire job._

Jon grimaces. A little too close to the truth, not to mention a reminder that he’s staying late for a reason, and not the normal, workaholic reasons. He really does need to make up for last week.

A:  
_Which I should really be getting back to._

M:  
_do you know what time it is!?  
right, right. busy man.  
does that sound as silly when you say it as it does to type it?_

Jon groans, hiding his face behind his hand. He’s going to regret that one for a while, it seems. Sometimes he’s not sure why he’s allowed to communicate with the wider world. Maybe that’s why Elias shoved him down into the archives.

A:  
_Goodnight, M._

M:  
_:)_

*

“I’ve decided that you’re right.”

Sasha looks up over her glasses. Looks behind her. Visibly assures herself that he must be talking to her. “Sorry, what?” she says, squinting in disbelief. 

Martin sighs. She’s not going to make this easy. It already took him the better part of the day to work up the nerve to say anything at all. “You. Are. Right.”

“I mean, yeah, usually, but I’m not used to hearing it.” But she’s clearly enjoying it, judging by the smile on her face. She sits back in her chair, folding her hands over her middle like a mob don. “What am I right about this time then?”

He chews on his bottom lip until he starts tasting blood. “I need to get over it. Him. You know.” He flaps his hand vaguely. She’s not going to make him say his name, is she? This is Sasha. She’s not _cruel_.

She cocks her head thoughtfully. “Did I say that or did Tim?”

“Well, I’m certainly never telling Tim he was right about anything, so it might as well be you,” Martin says, maybe a touch impatiently. He sighs. “Sorry, I’m just...I know why I do it, you know? I mean, my mum’s never been very caring so I supposed I conflate that with love quite a bit, don’t I, and that’s not even touching on that I’m not sure what I would ever do if I someone _did_ return my affection. Which is probably why I’ve been ignoring the guy who works at the bagel shop, even he _is_ cute--” He pauses to take a breath and stops, suddenly aware that all of those inside thoughts are actually on the outside.

And Sasha is staring at him, her eyebrows pulled together in concern. “Martin, are you...okay?” 

Ah. Better to save that stuff for his therapist. Granted, he hasn’t seen a therapist since his old one retired two years ago and he’s been meaning to get a new one, really he has, but...well, it hasn’t happened. 

“Never better,” he says, ignoring his own furiously blushing cheeks. “Because I--” he taps Sasha’s desk for emphasis, “am going to get over Jonathan Sims.”

*

A:  
 _You’re in an awfully good mood._

M:  
_am I?? haha_

A:  
_You keep smiling for no reason.  
:)_

M:  
_oh no its weird when you do it  
but yes, i am in a good mood, thank you very much!  
very astute :)_

A:  
_Are you going to elaborate?  
Did you meet someone then?  
This is a dating app, after all._

M:  
_what? oh no haha  
the opposite actually!  
i’ve decided to get over someone_

A:  
_...Interesting.  
Is that something people are normally happy about?_

M:  
_i’ll be honest, i’m not exactly the expert on normal that you think i am  
so probably not  
but for the best. having a crush on your boss isn’t...the best...idea…_

A:  
_Oh. Messy._

M:  
_that’s a word for it!  
aha sorry probably more information than you bargained for there_

A:  
_No, no, I asked.  
Not that I can empathize, but my boss is rather distinctly unappealing._

M:  
_aww, he didn’t win you over after that phone call? (;_

A:  
_I sorely regret telling you that._

M:  
_hahaha_

*

Martin is determined to be over Jon by the end of the week.

Which is...not really how these things work, probably, but it’s nice to have a goal, even if it’s already Wednesday and Jon’s been spending a lot of time holed up in his office anyway. Which might _seem_ helpful from the outside, but Martin suspects that he’s an _absence makes the heart grow fonder_ type and that won’t help at all. 

What he needs is to just… _be normal._ It shouldn’t be _that_ hard, except for that there’s a radius around Jon which, when entered, turns Martin into an absolute clown. Maybe it’s because Jon’s always looking at him like he’s expecting him to mess something up and Martin can’t help but oblige him. 

But no more of that! Even Elias notices, which is--well, uncomfortable.

“Martin,” he says as they pass in the hall. “You look...determined.” 

“Um.” Even if he weren’t (sort of) a poet, it wouldn’t be a far leap to describe Elias’ pale eyes as something like that of a dead fish. “Thanks?” 

He throws himself into his work, clearing out the backlog of statements waiting for follow-ups. He organizes his desk. He buys a succulent and attaches a sticky note reminding him to take it home on the weekends to get some sunlight. It’s good. It’s all...good.

Except for the Trisha Mallory statement. 

Namely in that he _can’t find it_. It’s marked off on the chart as having been recorded, a stupidly long number assigned to it with the date, but the follow-up box is still unchecked. Which, okay, fine, no problem, he could take care of that...if he could find the statement. 

Things being misplaced is really rather par for the course after Gertrude’s tenure, but a recently recorded statement? _Really?_ Aren’t they supposed to be better than that?

Of course Sasha doesn’t know where it’s gone, and Tim doesn’t either. Which leaves…

Well. Sometimes the universe certainly has a way of putting your resolve to the test. 

Martin gets his opportunity on Friday, which is good for his goal but bad for his stomach, considering it’s lunch time and Jon is standing between him and his tupperware of leftover lasagna. He’s actually standing in front of the entire fridge, leaning on the open door and staring into it like the secrets of the universe are hidden inside somewhere. He looks like he’s been standing there for quite some time. 

Martin clears his throat.

No response. Of course not. 

“Oh, hi, Jon!” Martin says, pulling out the perkiest, _oh, I didn’t see you there!_ voice he has available. “I had a question for you actually--”

Jon jumps, knocking into the refrigerator door, making its contents rattle. _“What?”_ He demands, but he seems to catch himself. He frowns and blinks, shaking his head. “Sorry. Just--tired. Ah--what is it?”

Martin blinks. That was...almost nice. Or it was an apology, at least. It was _something._ It’s very nearly enough to weaken his resolve.

But that’s what tests are for. To--well, test you. He steels himself. “I was just going through the chart and I noticed that there’s a statement still waiting for follow-up, but I can’t seem to find it. Could it still be in your office? The name is Trisha Mallory.”

Cool, calm, collected. _Nailed it._

Jon frowns. He should do that less, but Martin would be lying if it wasn’t a little endear-- _no_ , he’s not doing that anymore. “What was the subject?” His interest appears to be wandering again, back toward the inside of the fridge. 

“The disappearance of her daughter, I think it was.”

Jon freezes like a rabbit, his eyes widening like one of the older forgotten lunches has sprouted legs and is about to crawl out into the break room. Stranger things have happened. Jon certainly closes the refrigerator door fast enough, so suddenly that both Martin and the refrigerator jump. 

“I’m handling the follow-up on that one, actually,” he says stiffly, holding a single blueberry yogurt in a death grip. No spoon. “Don’t worry about it.”

Martin eyes its lid warily, waiting for the thing to geyser. “Oh, are you--are you sure? I’m pretty much caught up, I could take a look at it this afternoon--”

“I said I’ve _got it_. Seriously, Martin, since when are you such an overachiever?” Jon says scathingly, spinning on his heel and marching away. He makes it five steps before he stops.

“Are you looking for the...door?” Martin suggests weakly. The break room’s single door. Which is behind him. 

Jon heaves a sigh that moves his whole body. “Yes, Martin. Yes I am.” He takes his yogurt and leaves without another word. 

“God,” Martin says to the empty break room. “I do have bad taste, don’t I?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: italics are fine! I can handle italics!  
> one (1) open italics tag: I'm about to ruin this mans whole career
> 
> thank you for the comments and kudos!! it's nice to have a goofy little wip to work on, I'm glad y'all are having fun too (':
> 
> find me on tumblr at [divineatrophy](http://divineatrophy.tumblr.com/) and twitter at [blueskiddoodle!](http://twitter.com/blueskiddoodle/)


	3. Chapter 3

“Jon.”

“Hm?” Jon looks up from where he’s slouched on Georgie’s couch, his laptop perched on his middle but his phone held in front of it, the light from the dual screens reflecting in his glasses. His feet are wedged against the coffee table to keep him from slipping into a totally horizontal position, which unfortunately gives the Admiral ample opportunity to chew on the toes of his socks. 

Georgie is watching him with a thoughtful, narrowed-eyed look that never bodes well. “I thought you were supposed to be helping me with this research,” she says. “You were all excited about it.”

“ _Excited_ is a strong word,” he scoffs. Truth be told, he had looked forward to the opportunity to do a little real research again. He didn’t get the opportunity much since taking on his new role as the archivist. 

But excited? He can only imagine what M would have to say about _that_. Probably something clever and quippy that Jon would have to pretend he didn’t find funny. 

“Oh my God, you’re doing it again!”

“What!” He says, exasperated. “I’m not doing anything!” 

“You’re buried in your phone and you’re all...smiley!” Georgie gestures vaguely, nearly toppling her own laptop to the floor. “It’s weird!” 

He shoots her a flat look. “Can I not _smile_?”

“Not like that. Not unless the Admirals sucking up to you, and he’s currently trying to eat your sock.” Too true, actually. Jon wiggles his foot until the Admiral sprints away to regroup and form a new strategy. When he looks back, Georgie is frowning. “Who are you texting anyway? I’m right here.”

That’s...a little too close to a good point, actually. “I text plenty of people besides you,” he lies. And then, besides he’s an idiot, he extrapolates. “Coworkers...my landlord…”

“Coworkers,” Georgie repeats incredulously. “You’re texting Elias?” 

“I--what? Oh God, no.”

Georgie sighs, turning back to her computer imperiously. “Fine, keep your secrets,” she says, waving him off in what’s embarrassingly close to a meme reference. He’d almost believe it if she wasn’t smirking to herself.

“What?” Jon says, knowing that he’s taking the bait. “Now you’re the one being all mysterious.”

She shrugs, tapping diligently away at her laptop, even though they’re on opposite ends of the couch and he can clearly see she’s not really typing anything. “I just think it’s cute, is all,” she says lightly. “That you’ve got a little friend.”

He gives her an even flatter look, but she’s too pointedly interested in her computer screen to appreciate it. _Little_ seems a bit patronizing. Not that M is even his _friend_ , really. He’s just a stranger on an app. An informant to his investigation, really, though if that’s true, he admittedly hasn’t provided much useful insight on the inner workings of the average lovr user. 

And yet here they are, in the middle of a conversation about cats as Jon tries to navigate the app’s impossible user interface long enough to send a picture of the Admiral. 

“There’s no need to be jealous,” he says loftily, when it seems too likely she’s going to get the last word in. “I can have more than one friend.”

Georgie huffs a laugh. “Oh, I don’t think we’re the same kind of friend,” she says slyly. “I’ve been there, done that. Not going back.”

Jon squints at her, the gears in his head audibly turning before the dots finally connect. His ears grow warm. “I’m not--it’s not--” Oh, and now he’s stuttering like an idiot, which is only proving her right. Or so she thinks. Really, anyone would be flustered when accused of-- “Shut up,” he says succinctly. 

*

A:  
_Are we friends?_

M:  
_i am going to SCREAM  
oh! sorry  
you go first_

A:  
_...I think yours might be a little more important._

M:  
_ugh honestly its just  
its stupid really its not important  
but yes I consider us to be friends :)  
do you send cat pics to people who arent your friend??_

A:  
_It’s my friend’s cat, not mine, first off._

M:  
_so any cat-based tracking would bring the ax murderer to their door instead of yours?_

A:  
_Exactly._

M:  
_devious! very detectively of you_

A:  
_Oh, ha ha, very funny. I know you still don’t believe me.  
I was just wondering. Everything about this being so strange and all. _

M:  
_yeah i did use you to trick my coworker into believing i’m actually using this app the way its intended  
that was a bit weird_

A:  
_I was thinking about the fact that I was using you for an investigation, but yes, that too.  
All this to say, I was wondering if you wanted to text? Normally, I mean, without this stupid app.  
Being friends and all. _

M:  
_oh  
i’m sorry i just…  
this is going to sound so fake but its really just  
my life is pretty not good? right now? pretty bad, really  
and this is good! whatever this is. i’m just afraid if i mix them...i’ll, i dont know, mess it up somehow. i do that. mess things up. probably like i’m doing right now  
this app is extremely stupid and its probably using our phones to mine bitcoin or whatever but its. i dont know. i can be all the good parts of myself without having to worry about the bad parts. _

A:  
_I see._

M:  
_i’m sorry!_

A:  
_No, no, it’s perfectly understandable. Really.  
I wasn’t thinking. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable._

M:  
_no i suppose the problem is i’m TOO comfortable here  
you only think i’m normal because i dont tell you how many times a day i make an ass of myself  
maybe i should leave them an app store review. that’s got to be worth at least one star_

A:  
_I’m fairly certain that giving this thing any stars is a crime.  
Anyway, I interrupted you. You were going to scream._

M:  
_what?  
oh! god.  
just stupid work drama  
i swear my boss is always giving me a hard time for not working hard enough, except when i TRY, and then its not what he wants me to work on  
i really dont know what he wants anymore!_

A:  
_He sounds insufferable._

M:  
_nooo hes not that bad really  
hes...sufferable  
most days  
just not this one_

A:  
_Wait, this isn’t the one you’re in love with, is it?_

M:  
_ok, i don’t remember saying the word LOVE_

A:  
_You said you have feelings for him!_

M:  
_there are feelings between love and not love! it’s a spectrum!_

A:  
_Well, how am I supposed to know that?_

M:  
_youre not! because i avoid talking about it whenever possible!  
i can’t believe i’m getting this from you too, its like being at work_

A:  
_Your coworkers all know about it too?  
Oh, M…_

M:  
_stop!!!!_

A:  
_Does he know?  
Maybe that’s why he’s being such a prick.  
Homophobe or something._

M:  
_no no i don’t think so  
i think he might be...honestly i have no idea what he is, but i sincerely doubt hes a bigot  
i dont think hes even noticed my...ugh, my feelings. god i hate you.  
hes probably the only person i know busier than you are_

A:  
_You don’t know that! I’m very busy._

M:  
_and yet here you are talking to me!_

*

“Has Jon been weird to you lately?” Martin says casually, wrapping his hands around his tea, the mug still hot enough to sting his hands a bit. He’s only thinking about it because they’re in the breakroom, honestly. He definitely hasn’t thought about his weird conversation with Jon the other day until right now.

Absolutely. 

Tim looks up from where he’s carefully assembling a plate of slightly stale pastries. They’re usually not all in the break room at the same time, but the library had some sort of meeting that morning and they left the leftover food in the breakroom to be picked over. Pastry vulture isn’t the proudest of looks in the world, but none of them are too interested in pride when there’s cherry danishes that are still mostly good lying around. 

“You’re going to have to elaborate on _weird_ ,” Sasha says instead. While Tim has opted for the scattershot approach, she seems to be hunting for the one perfect pastry left. She squints at the platter. “Do you think that’s cherry or raspberry? Could go either way.”

“Aren’t you allergic to cherries?” Tim says.

“You see my concern.”

“It’s raspberry. You can see the seeds,” Martin says impatiently. “I don’t know--just weird. I think he’s hiding something.”

“I mean, probably, but I usually assume it’s something I’d rather not know anyway.” Tim laughs as Sasha elbows him and he swipes the raspberry-but-maybe-cherry danish off the platter. “What? I could be saving you!”

“Or you could be stealing the best one! How many do you need?”

He did not awkwardly begin this conversation not to awkwardly end it, dammit. Which is to say, he sighs loudly and sets his tea on the table. “I tried to follow-up on the Mallory statement--the disappearance, you know, it’s still on the chart to be done--but he insisted he was doing it himself. Got real...well, weird about it. Defensive, maybe?”

“I guess that _is_ weird,” Sasha relents, swatting Tim’s hand away from a cheese danish and taking it herself. “Must be an interesting one.”

“Oh, yes, we have such a problem with _boring_ statements,” Tim says flatly. “The one about the guy wearing his skin inside out practically put me to sleep.”

“I can’t find the statement, either,” Martin forges on. “Which is also weird. Shouldn’t it be in the file? Aren’t we all about organization now?” 

Tim shoots him a sideways look. “Why do you care so much? If you’re that bored, I have some pointless phone calls you can make.”

Martin scoffs a little too loudly. “I don’t _care_ ,” he says. “It’s just weird. Curious. A little strange.”

Oh, and now Tim and Sasha are sharing one of those Tim-and-Sasha looks again, the kind that make him feel like he’s watching them speak another language. 

He sighs. “Just help me figure out what’s so special about this statement, okay? Just...to satisfy my curiosity.” 

“That doesn’t sound like getting over him, Martin…” Sasha says warily.

Tim heaves a sigh of his own, putting his hand over his heart. “Don’t I do enough for this institute?” He says. “I’ve got three dates in the next two days _just_ to maintain my police contacts. That’s not easy, you know. Half the time I have to pay for dinner.”

“Because you’re a gentleman,” Sasha fills in dutifully. 

“Because I’m a gentleman,” Tim agrees, pointing at her. “We’re serious researchers, Martin. We can’t just go chasing after every opportunity for Scooby Doo-esque antics. We have to be discerning.”

Oh. Oh, he sees now. Tim isn’t saying no. He’s _haggling._

Suddenly, Martin feels very out of his depth.

“...What do you want?” He says warily, clutching his mug like a lifeline.

Tim smiles and shrugs. “I’ll help you spy on the boss...if you ask your app friend out on a date.”

“What? No!” His cheeks go so bright they could probably light up the greater London area. He turns to Sasha for help, but she’s got her finger on her chin, looking thoughtful. “Sasha! You can’t be serious.”

“You’re always texting him anyway!” Sasha says, putting her hands up defensively. “Maybe Tim is right. You’d never do it on your own.”

“Yeah, because it’s insane!” Martin drags his hands down his face as if it could wipe away his furious blushing. It doesn’t. “I think this might count as harassment.” 

“So is _spying_ ,” Tim says incredulously, around a mouthful of danish. “Please tell Elias all about it. Please provide transcripts of that conversation--”

“Okay, okay. Fine.” Martin sighs and rubs his forehead. He really has no one to blame but himself for this one. Unfortunately. “But answers first, or deal’s off.”

“Nope! Considering the answer is _very_ likely to be ‘Jonathan Sims is being weird and secretive for no reason, as he’s known to do’, I’m going to need a little more on my side of the contract.” Tim taps the table. “Two weeks. I put forth my best efforts, short of seducing the man himself--” Martin makes an embarrassing little squawk. “--and then you set up your date whether you like the results or not.”

Martin hesitates, pressing his lips together in a firm line. He’s never been much of a businessman--it’s a career he’s explicitly avoided for a reason. Not that deals like these come up exceptionally often, he suspects. At least among normal people.

“Deal,” he says, before he can think better of it. 

“Deal,” Time agrees, and a grin blooms across his face. A shiver passes through Martin’s soul.

“My favorite part,” Sasha says, “is when you can just tell something is going to end in disaster.“

*

M:  
 _i’m starting to think i did something very stupid_

A:  
_What’s that?_

M:  
_made a deal with the devil_

A:  
_Dramatic._

M:  
_oh, from you!_

A:  
_I am not dramatic._

M:  
_riiight  
anyway_

There’s a sharp knock at the door to his office, and Tim pokes his head in without waiting for a response. “Got a sec?” he asks, raising his eyebrows.

Something about that question gives him a bad feeling, but he can hardly say no. Regardless of the fact that Tim is his employee and Jon is supposed to be something of an effective supervisor, if given the chance, he’s also already finished the statement he meant to do today and has moved on to the new part of his daily routine, which seems to be ‘wasting time texting someone who doesn’t even have a real name.’

Well, presumably M _does_ have a name, even if Jon doesn’t know it. The mystery would go quite a bit deeper if he didn’t--

“Is that a...no?” Tim says. 

“What? No. Of course. Come in.” He straightens up the papers on his desk, casually flipping his phone over in the process to hide the screen in case it lights up with a lovr notification. 

Tim shuts the door behind him--another bad sign. There’s a chair that sits opposite Jon’s desk. He’s not really sure why he keeps it, considering most of his office time is spent alone with a tape recorder, not to mention the fact that it better resembles a kitchen chair that’s lost the rest of its pack. Tim takes it and flips it around, straddling it so that he can rest his arms against the back. A shiver passes through Jon’s soul as he flashes back to every overly-helpful teacher that’s ever expressed concern about how he gets along with the rest of the class. 

Jon clears his throat and straightens his back. “Is something...wrong?” He prays to whatever might be listening that nothing is wrong. What is he supposed to do if something is wrong? Elias keeps promising that he’s going to email him a webinar on managerial training, but the links are always broken. 

Tim looks thoughtful. “I’m alright,” he says, “but you might have a problem.”

There’s an instinct that he gets when he reads some of the statements. A prickle at the back of his neck that he doesn’t like, an echo of some animal instinct warning him that something is off with the universe. Something just wrong enough to be dangerous. His neck prickles now.

“So here’s the thing,” Tim says. “Martin wants to know about the Mallory statement and why you’re being such a secretive weirdo about it.”

Jon’s skin goes cold and then hot--and then what Tim really said sinks in, and he’s just incredulous. “Why does he care so much about the Mallory statement?” he says, exasperated. 

“Not a clue,” Tim says, a little too breezily to be all the way true. His mouth tilts in a smirk. “But I do know why you’re hiding it.”

“Do you?” Jon challenges with a scoff, feeling bold. There’s no way. Tim might be a valuable researcher, but he can’t read minds—

“I noticed you hadn’t given it to anyone for follow-up weeks before Martin did, so I read it,” Tim says flatly. “Pretty obvious from there. It was a no-win situation. The dating app disappearance--who were you going to give it to? I would joke about it for at _least_ a solid week, Martin would do that blush-y, stammer-y thing any time he talked about it. I guess there’s Sasha, but the risk that she would mention it to me--”

“Okay, okay,” Jon snaps, his face warm. “Yes, I get it.”

Tim taps his fingers against the back of the chair thoughtfully, looking as pleased as punch. “So, I could tell Martin all of that...or we could negotiate a counter-offer. Buy my silence.”

Jon narrows his eyes. This is dangerous territory here. One wrong move, and he’s given away the entire archive to Tim Stoker. 

But one of his few childhood activities besides reading was playing cards with his grandmother and her ladies’ group. He’s familiar with bluffing.

“Why do you think I care that much if Martin knows?” He says dismissively. 

Tim shrugs and moves to stand. “Suits me fine. I’ll go let him know--”

Familiar with bluffing. Not good at it. 

“Sit down, sit down,” Jon hisses. “Fine. What do you want?”

Tim settles back down, this time his chin tipped up imperiously. He looks like the meme M sent him the other day of a cat staring down a knife. “I want the institute to cover the cost of my little police dates,” he says. “Drinks included. Keeping up contacts there is getting expensive.”

Jon rolls his eyes. “Because you’re a gentleman, yes, I know,” he says. “How am I supposed to explain that on an expense report?” 

Tim shrugs. “That’s your part to figure out.”

This is...ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. He should no be letting himself be blackmailed by his own employee, especially over something so stupid. He can only assume the webinar didn’t cover situations like these anyway. “One round of drinks,” he says stiffly. “And no bottles of wine over thirty pounds.”

“ _Thirty?_ ” Tim scoffs. “Cheap. Remind me not to go on a date with _you._ ”

His scowl deepens. “Fifty. Final offer.”

“Deal,” Tim says. He stands, spinning the chair on one leg so it faces the right direction again. He looks intolerably triumphant. “Isn’t it so funny? None of it would have even been _that_ weird until you decided to hide it. Now it’s super weird. Wish you’d start keeping some of the meat ones to yourself too.” 

“I’ll make sure the statement on oozing slabs of meat outside someone’s window makes it to your desk,” Jon says, more than a little spitefully.

Tim only laughs. “Guess I deserve that.”

Jon waits until he’s gone, the door closed behind him, to drop his forehead to his desk. It crushes his glasses against his face, but he deserves the discomfort. Frankly, the fact that he hid the statement is embarrassing, but normally he would have owned up to it before he let Tim get his way like that (a dangerous precedent, truly dangerous).

If it weren’t for the fact that he’s not just investigating a statement anymore.

If it weren’t for the fact that he’s still using the app, that he’s opening it right now, because from his angle of suffering he can see the screen lit up with a notification. He turns his face just enough to semi-comfortably see the screen.

A:  
_Sorry, impromptu work meeting._

M:  
_texting at work? rebellious!_

A:  
_Oh, as if you don’t._

M:  
_who are you, my boss?  
how did the meeting go?_

A:  
_Terribly.  
I think I’m starting to see what you mean about making a deal with the devil._

M:  
_whos dramatic now?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god you know when you've been off work too long when you start getting nostalgic over the idea of free hours-old pastries in the breakroom
> 
> thank you for the kudos and comments!! they always make me laugh dfgjkfgh. you can also find me on tumblr at [divineatrophy](https://divineatrophy.tumblr.com/) or twitter at [blueskiddoodle!](https://twitter.com/blueskiddoodle)


	4. Chapter 4

“Sasha,” Martin says tentatively. They’re alone today--Tim is out in the field and Jon has been stuck in a meeting with Elias for so long that they’ve given him up for dead. It’s nice. Quiet. So naturally, Martin decides to ruin it. “Can I ask you something? Kind of personal?”

Sasha looks up over her computer, her fingers still typing as if of their own accord. “Sure,” she says.

Martin swivels his chair, finally abandoning the pretense of work. He’s been useless all day--he’s been useless all week, really, but it’s only gotten increasingly work as the time on Tim’s two week window steadily runs out. He made a bargain, and he’s--

Well. It’s complicated. 

“So,” he says, fiddling nervously with a paperclip. “You know about...you know.”

Sasha’s mouth quirks up in a smile--he can’t tell if it’s quietly pitying or not. “Almost that time, isn’t it?” she says, teasing him. “You’re nervous, I take it?”

Martin exhales all in a rush, slumping against his desk. “A bit,” he says. “Nauseated, actually. Is that normal?”

“Martin, I don’t think anything about this is normal.”

He laughs weakly. 

Sasha sighs and turns away from her computer, folding her hands on the empty piece of desk in front of her. “You don’t know how to ask him out,” she guesses.

“That’s not--it’s not like I’ve never done it before.” Not _many_ times, but he _has_. Martin huffs, going red in the face. Well, that took about as long as expected. He hides his face behind his hands. “The problem is that I’ve already messed it up.”

Nothing. Martin peeks through his fingers to find Sasha watching him patiently. “This is the part where you say ‘oh of course you have, Martin, isn’t that just typical of you?’’” He prompts. 

“This is the part where you tell me what happened and I inform you that you’re being an idiot and everything will be fine,” Sasha counters. “Go on. I’ve already got my part planned out. I mean--you’re on a dating app, Martin. Do you think he’s going to say no?”

“That’s the thing!” He drags his hands away from his face with a sigh. “So--you remember when Tim first set up the app, he messaged that fake account, just messing around?”

Sasha squints. “Sort of?”

“Well, it wasn’t a fake account. Not really. It--he--responded and, well, we got to talking and--” And how is he supposed to describe what it turned into? A friendship, certainly--they’d already established that--but a strange one. Frankly, he talks to A more than he does about anyone else. Not that he’s ever been someone with an overabundance of friends, but it’s just so easy to pick up his phone, to really be himself behind the protective layer of a shitty dating app, without all the embarrassing things that leap out in real life. That’s the word. _Easy._ Talking to A is easy. “I really like him, Sasha. I really, _really_ like him. He’s funny and dry and a little awkward, but in like a charming way, you know? So sometimes it’s like-- _I’m_ the cool one! Or at least he thinks so. I can tell he does. It’s just...it’s nice. It’s really nice.” 

Sasha perches her chin on her hand, her eyebrows furrowing. “And now you’re afraid that you’re more into him than he’s into you?”

“No--well, yes--but mostly...I think I kind of friendzoned him.” Martin cringes.

“Martin!” Sasha actually sounds exasperated. “How did you manage that!”

“Shh!” He hisses, his eyes darting down the hall. Still no sign of anyone else, but Jon can be stealthy when he has the mind to be. Tim, less so. “I don’t know! I got nervous! He asked if I wanted to trade phone numbers--actually properly text, like normal people--but all I could think about was him calling me on accident and I pick up without thinking and then he hears my voice and never wants to speak to me again and--”

“Martin.”

He sighs. It’s not fair how much she can say with just his _name._ “I’m just not sure what to...do.”

Sasha watches him, her eyes narrowed contemplatively. “Well,” she says after an endless pause. “I think you should ask him out, obviously.”

Martin makes a pained sound, but Sasha waves him off before he can argue. “You promised Tim you would, for one,” she says plainly. “And I don’t envy you if you go back on that one. Secondly…” She taps her fingers thoughtfully against her desk, a tuneless rhythm. “You’ve already done the ‘pining from afar’ thing before, Martin. Do you really want to go through all that again?”

Martin’s shoulders sag, as surely as if she’d ripped the wind right out of him. She’s right, isn’t she? He told himself he was getting over Jon, come hell or high water, only to land himself in the exact same play, only with a slightly different cast of characters. Maybe it just goes to show that Jonathan Sims--haughty, prickly Jonathan Sims, who definitely hates him--isn’t the problem. 

Maybe it’s Martin.

“You’re right,” he says, drawing himself back up again. He plants his hands on his desk. “I’m going to do it. I will. Thanks, Sasha.”

She shoots him finger guns and turns back to her computer. “Happy to help.”

*

M:  
 _can we talk?_

A:  
_I daresay talking is what we do best here._

M:  
_oh haha, leave the jokes to me  
its about_

A:  
_...M?_

M:  
_sorry! i’m just nervous  
i dont want you to think i’m some sort of creep  
the truth is i’m not in edinburgh i just told my coworker to put that in my profile so no real creep came and murdered me _

A:  
_Are you not the cat in your profile picture either? I’m devastated._

M:  
_i’m being serious! i feel really bad ):  
it feels like lying  
i mean it was always lying but i didn’t care about who i was lying to before _

A:  
_Really, M, it’s fine. You’re overthinking it.  
You might have noticed that my profile doesn't contain anything, at all._

M:  
_yes. well.  
i dont know. it’s different._

A:  
_It’s totally fine.  
...Also, you do know this app is proximity-based, right?  
I mean, I’d assumed you were in London for business or on holiday or something, but it’s really the same difference._

M:  
_i did not know that, no!  
going to disappear forever now!_

A:  
_Oh, please. You’d be back.  
You’d miss me._

Jon bites the tip of his tongue, his legs pulled up to his chin as he sits on his couch in the dark, bathed by the light of his phone screen. This is dangerously close to flirting, if he’s not there already. He is, isn’t he? His heart beats embarrassingly fast as he watches the typing bubble undulate. 

M:  
_ugh, i guess_

“Shut up, you would,” Jon mumbles into his knees to hide his grin. God, he’s desperately glad he’s not at work. He’d actually been well on his way to falling asleep on his couch when the vibration of the incoming message woke him up. If he were a little less distracted, he’d thank M for saving him from a nasty crick in his neck. He may not be as old as he looks, but he’s not as young as he used to be. 

M:  
_youre in london then?  
i mean, i am.  
and with the proximity thing i’ve been enlightened about_

A:  
_I am._

M:  
_cool! practically neighbors_

A:  
_There are 8.982 million people in London._

M:  
_knew that off the top of your head, did you?_

A:  
_Strangely, yes._

Oh, well, there goes flirting, or whatever attempt at it he’d been making. Georgie has only ever validated his suspicion that his ability to expound on useless information with a side of pedantic detail is not one of his more attractive qualities. He presses his phone against his forehead and sighs through his nose. This is the part where one of them is supposed to casually suggest they meet up sometime--they’re in the same city, they clearly get along, it only makes _sense_ \--only it can’t be him. It has to be M. If Jon’s the one who takes that step forward _again_ , only to be gently though awkwardly let down _again_ , it’ll be just mortifying. 

And if M isn’t ready for it, then M isn’t ready for it. Jon isn’t going to push him into some deeper commitment just because he’s an idiot with a crush (just the word makes him frown pensively). Maybe they are just victims of happenstance, having a little fun on a stupid app. He shouldn’t put so much stock into it. People have casual friendships that don’t mean anything all the time. Just because he’s not one of them is probably a personal problem more than anything. 

M:  
_we could be passing by each other every day and not even know it. weird to think about_

A:  
_Very weird._

This is it. This is the moment. Jon holds his phone so close that his nose is practically pressed against the screen. He should probably put his glasses on, frankly.

M:  
_sorry, i’ve just realized the time! i should let you sleep  
goodnight!_

“No, no, no,” he hisses. “You can’t be serious.” His thumbs punch the keyboard a little too aggressively. 

A:  
_Goodnight._

M:  
_(:_

Jon throws his phone across the couch, watching it bounce off the cushion and clatter to the ground.

*

“Are you alright, Jon?” Sasha asks. “You look tired.”

“Mm?” Jon looks up blearily. “Thank you. It’s because I am.” 

Sasha gives him a sideways look as she lays the folder she’s carrying on his desk. Ah. A little more honest than he normally aims for, but he _is_ tired. He’d been up stewing half the night, lying on his back with his hands folded on his stomach, frowning up at the darkened ceiling and waiting for his phone to light up. Which it didn’t, because M evidently took bedtime seriously, but that didn’t stop his mind from churning. 

It’s _maddening_. Why would M bring up his location at all, if he wasn’t going to suggest they meet each other? Not that Edinburgh is exactly an _insurmountable_ distance from London, but it would have been a hell of a lot more of a commitment. This was hardly a commitment at all. This was an _afternoon._

Unless it’s that M doesn’t want to actually _see_ him. Jon touches his hair self-consciously, his fingers going to the gray spot on their own. He knows he shouldn’t have mentioned that. 

“Might give caffeine a try,” Sasha says. “I’m sure Martin’s got something on.”

“No, no. I’m fine,” Jon sighs, shuffling the papers in front of him without really looking at their contents. He hesitates. “Sasha, can I ask you something?”

Sasha stops, a strange resignation passing over her face before she schools her features again. “Sure,” she says. “Why not.”

“How do you…” He leans forward, his elbows on the desk. “How do you know--God, this is embarrassing--how do you know if someone’s ghosting you? Is that the word?”

“We-e-e-ell,” Sasha says, drawing the word out thoughtfully. “Have they stopped texting you back? It’s usually pretty straight forward.”

“No, we’re still talking...maybe that’s the wrong word.” He pushes up his glasses with his fingertips, rubbing at where they sit on his nose. “Maybe that’s not it. I’m sorry, this is unprofessional.”

Sasha shrugs, more accepting than casual. “I got over that a long time ago, honestly.” 

Somehow that doesn't make him feel better. “I just...don’t really have anyone else to ask.” Except for Georgie, but he’d really rather not, even besides the fact that she’d tease him to hell and back over it. Getting advice from a failed relationship doesn’t seem like the best way to start a new one. Not that this-- _whatever_ with M was a _relationship_ , but...well. You never know. “Friendzoned. How do you know if you’re being friendzoned?”

Sasha grimaces.

“What?” Jon asks. “Is that not a word?”

“No, it’s just...not one I ever expected to hear you say,” Sasha says. She blinks and shakes her head. “Uh. Well. I guess...you could ask him?”

Jon frowns. “Ask him if he’s friendzoning me?” He says flatly. He doesn’t know what sagely advice he was looking for, but it’s not that.

“Well, don’t say the _word_ ,” she says, exasperated. “Is this...sorry, this isn’t about Martin, is it?”

Oh, but she’s looking at him like _he’s_ the crazy one? “Why would it be about _Martin?_ ” It’s impossible not to sound incredulous. 

“Right. No reason.” Sasha rubs at her forehead. “Just tell him how you feel and see what he says. It’s really only as weird as you make it.”

“Hm,” Jon hums. Unfortunately, he’s exceptionally good at making things weird. A lovr notification pops up on his phone. Case in point. 

Sasha smiles tiredly. “You’re not going to do it, are you?”

“Probably not,” he says honestly, “but thank you anyway.”

“Apparently that’s what I’m here for,” Sasha says. 

Whatever that’s supposed to mean.

*

When the sand in the hourglass runs out, Martin is ready.

“Oh, we’re moving very quickly this morning,” Tim says when Martin greets him by shoving his phone in his face. It’s eight in the morning and Tim is wearing sunglasses inside, his shirt buttons done wrong so that his collar sits jauntily. “Is it always this bright in here? Do we have a dimmer switch?”

“Long night?” Sasha says pleasantly, smirking over the rim of her mug.

“A bit.” Tim grimaces, taking the phone from Martin’s hand before he starts pressing the screen against his nose. “What’s this?” He visibly perks up as he reads the screen. “Mr. Blackwood! Look at you. You’ve come prepared.”

“I haven’t sent it yet,” Martin says, tugging his phone back before Tim can get any ideas about reading more than the message sitting in the text box. His cheeks are pink, but they’ve been that way all morning. He might also throw up, but he’s trying to avoid that. He can at least be proud of himself in the moment. 

Because he’s going to ask A on a date.

Or--well, he’s going to ask him to _meet_. Which could be construed as a date. He thinks. Hopes? Whatever. The point is that he’s going to do it. 

“I wanted you to know that I’m a man of my word,” he says to Tim.

“That you are,” Tim agrees, grinning as he clasps Martin’s shoulder. “I’m proud of you. And look!” He turns to Sasha. “Nothing went wrong! Naysayer.”

Sasha shakes her head, still smiling indulgently to herself. “I still can’t believe Jon didn’t catch you snooping.”

Tim gestures flippantly. “ _Snooping_ is a big word. The statement takes place in his hometown. It was just nostalgia, I guess.”

Martin frowns softly. “I didn’t know that Jon cared that much about his hometown.” It’s actually a little but sweet if he--no! He’s not thinking about Jonathan Sims! Not today. 

Tim evidently agrees. He gives Martin a little shake where his hand meets his shoulder. “Come on then, are you going to do it? Do you want me to hit send for you?”

Martin’s resolve falters. “At eight in the morning? It’s a bit early. He could still be sleeping.”

Tim shakes his head. “Early bird catches the worm.”

“No time like the present,” Sasha agrees. 

“Carpe diem.”

“YOLO.”

“Okay, I get it, thank you!” Martin says, aggressively cheerful. “Fine. Okay. Fine, fine, fine.” He stands paralyzed.

Tim raises his eyebrows. “ _Martin._ ”

“Okay!” He presses his thumb against the send button before he can think better of it. Or worse. Or think about it at all. He stares down at the screen, the text bubble gray as it sends. “Oh my God. Did I really do that?”

“You really did it,” Tim says with a laugh.

Sasha grins. “Good job, Martin.”

“Yeah.” Martin laughs, breathless. “I think I’m going to lock my phone in a drawer now.”

“How are you going to know when he--”

_BANG._

They all jump at the muffled bang from Jon’s office, Martin’s phone nearly flying from his already sweaty palms. They exchange a look in the ensuing silence. 

“Everything alright in there, boss?” Tim calls tentatively. 

“Fine!” Jon calls back. “Spider. Just saw a spider.”

“What’s with him and spiders?” Tim mutters. Sasha’s eyebrows pull together until a furrow appears between them. 

“Oh my God, he’s seen it.” Martin’s hand flies to his mouth as the little ‘read at 8:25 AM’ stares back at him. “He’s seen it! What do I do?”

“What do you mean ‘what do I do’? Wait and see what he says,” Tim says, trying to peek over his shoulder and see for himself. Martin hides his phone against his chest. 

There’s a rustle and a smaller, softer bang as the door to Jon’s office flies open, the man himself sweeping out of it like a whirlwind. His bag is slung over his shoulder and his glasses are slightly askew, and he’s moving in entirely the wrong direction for this time of day. 

Tim and Martin have to take a step backwards to avoid getting bulldozed, though judging from the look in his eye, Jon might not have noticed. “Sure you’re alright?” Tim asks tentatively.

“Hm? Oh.” Jon pauses, apparently noticing them for the first time. He sweeps a hand through his hair, which only makes it worse. “I’ve got to go. Uh. Emergency.’

“With the spider?” Martin asks, concerned.

“What spider?” He looks distracted, fussing with the strap of his bag. “I don’t feel well. Georgie doesn’t feel well, I mean,” he amends quickly. “Georgie asked me to pick up medicine for her because she’s not feeling well.” He nods to himself, apparently satisfied. “I’d better be going.”

“Hope she feels better…” Martin says, but he’s not sure Jon even hears it as he makes off down the hall with long strides. 

Tim pushes his sunglasses further up his nose. “I hate to be the one to say it, but it is way too early for this kind of excitement.”

“Agreed,” Sasha says into her mug.

*

He tries to get some work done.

Really, he has the best intentions, but Martin mostly spends the next hour staring blankly at his computer screen. Or at least it feels like an hour. According to the clock in the bottom corner of the screen, it’s actually been twenty minutes.

And then his phone vibrates.

_BANG._

_”Shit,”_ Martin hisses, rubbing his knee where it reflexively smacked into the underside of his desk when he jumped. Both Tim and Sasha’s heads appear over their computers like gophers peeking out of their holes.

“Was that him?” Tim asks with barely restrained glee. 

“Don’t worry about it!” Martin snatches up his phone without looking at the screen. “I’m going on break,” he says, before beating a hasty retreat.

Sasha laughs at his retreating back. “Martin, that’s not fair!” 

He avoids the breakroom--too obvious, in case one of them (Tim) gets it in his head to come snooping. He chooses a secluded hallway instead, inserting himself between a cart of books someone from the library left around and a door that he’s never seen opened. It’s only there, his back pressed against the wall, that he’s brave enough to look down at his phone. His own message stares back at him.

M:  
_hey! If youre not busy i was wondering if you wanted to get dinner sometime? maybe friday? or whatever! since we’re practically neighbors at all_

He’d workshopped it for hours and he still wasn’t satisfied, but eventually he’d accepted that he was never going to be. Dinner still feels presumptuous, but lunch felt too casual, and he was already pushing the boundaries of the phrase ‘asking out’. Coffee was a suitably date-coded activity, but it necessitated it be over the weekend, and he’s not confident in his importance to A enough to assume that he’d sacrifice part of his weekend for him. Friday night is still a gamble, but lends to the credence of calling it a date, just not in so many words. He ran the numbers. Tim can’t say he tried to weasel his way out of a deal. 

He forces his eyes downward, to A’s response. 

A:  
_Is that you playing that ungodly music all night?_

His heart plummets. “What…?” His eyes scan his message again, looking for typos. What the hell is he…

A:  
_Since we’re neighbors. Sorry. Bad joke._

His breath comes out all at once. “Christ, you gave me a heart attack,” he mutters, shaking his phone like it’s the man’s shoulders. His thumbs hover awkwardly over the screen, trying to think of a witty response. He hesitates. Is A changing the subject? Is this his way of letting him down easy without saying the words? Should he just go with it, for both their sakes?

His phone buzzes again before he can decide.

A:  
_Friday sounds great. When and where?_

Oh. Oh! Martin stares down at the screen, his mouth hanging open just a bit. He hadn’t actually picked a place--he hadn’t considered A actually saying yes. He quickly types out the name of an Italian place within walking distance from the institute. Mid-tier, decently priced. Good, but not the kind of place he’d miss, just in case this goes disastrously and he can never return without reliving the memories. He likes to plan ahead. Just in case. 

A:  
_Perfect. See you then.  
(:_

A grin blooms across his face, stubborn and pervasive. He’s absolutely too old to be this stupidly giddy about this, but he doesn’t care. Though the ringing in his ears is a bit str--

“Oh, hello.”

Martin jumps and this time he loses his grip on his phone, throwing it halfway across the hall. It slides across the thin carpeting, stopping at the feet of the man who had spoken. 

The man stoops and picks up the phone, smiling fondly at it in a way that makes Martin want to squirm out of his skin. As if throwing his phone at strangers wasn’t bad enough, he still had the lovr app open, the user interface so garishly pink it can probably be seen from down the hall. 

“Careful there, Martin,” the man says indulgently, handing the phone back. He carries a strange, grandfatherly air around him, but the kind of grandfather that you don’t particularly like outside of the checks he sends around Christmastime. He also smells a bit like low tide. “Wouldn’t want to lose that.”

“I--” Martin blinks. “Sorry, have we met?” 

“In a way.” He smiles behind his bristing gray beard. “Now why don’t you point me in the direction of Elias’ office? That man is always moving it. You’d almost think he didn’t want to be found.” He laughs at a joke that Martin isn’t in on.

Elias’ office has never moved in all the time he’s worked there, but he’s not going to argue. He’s starting to get a headache. “Um. Down the hall and to your right. There’s a little plaque on the door. You can’t miss it.”

“Right. Thank you, Martin.”

Martin blinks, watching the man leave. The pressure headache building behind his eyes loosens its grip. “That was...weird,” he says to himself. He huffs a laugh. “Then again, what isn’t around here?” 

And now he’s talking to himself. Great sign. He gives himself a little shake, smiling as he remembers his phone in his hand. Happiness bubbles up in his chest like carbonation.

_Friday._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jon and martin, independently of one another: I'm going to make this complicated for no reason and no I cannot be stopped 
> 
> thank you for the comments and kudos!! y'all are gems. these days my writing braincell can only produce goofs but at least we're having fun nkfhfkg
> 
> you can also find me on tumblr at [divineatrophy](https://divineatrophy.tumblr.com/) and twitter at [blueskiddoodle](https://twitter.com/blueskiddoodle)!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: mentions of vomit and canon-typical grubs. not very explicitly, but just a heads up!

“Ow! Stop that!” Jon sputters as he bats away the second throw pillow thrown at him forcefully. The first of which already struck him full in the face, smashing his glasses uncomfortably into the bridge of his nose. Worse than that, now the lenses are smudged. “What are you doing?”

“I’m beating you to death,” Georgie says, whipping another pillow. This one has tassels. Since when does he own this many throw pillows, much less one with tassels? Maybe it’s time he started paying more attention to interior decor. Or at least the contents of the closet Georgie is standing in front of. Clearly this one has gotten a little out of hand. “I can’t believe you told them I was _vomiting._ ”

“Is that really what you’re—I didn’t say _vomiting!_ ” He holds up the tasseled pillow as a shield. At least he doesn’t think he did. That morning was all a bit of a blur in a deeply embarrassing way. He’s only certain it happened at all because of the messages on his phone and the bruise on his knee where it collided violently with the underside of his desk. Certainly that was enough bodily injury _without_ the barrage of pillows. “Sick! I told them you were _sick!_ ”

“You shouldn’t have told them anything!” Georgie huffs, folding her arms over her chest. “Don’t involve me in your stupid web of lies. Now I have to invent a food poisoning incident next time I see them.”

“How often do you see _my_ coworkers?” He says dryly, tentatively lowering the pillow. 

“More, if I wanted to,” she says. “ _I’m_ not the one with a date. Maybe I need to get out there more. Do you think Sasha is single? Or Martin?”

“Do _not_ make me imagine a world where you’re dating Martin,” Jon counters. What would that look like? Live poetry readings on What The Ghost? Georgie found drowned in inordinate amounts of tea? He groans and lets himself fall backwards where he’d been sitting on his bed. He bravely resists the urge to smother himself with the pillow in his lap. “Are you going to help me or not?”

“I was in the middle of helping you, before you let slip you defamed my character.” She turns back toward his closet, rifling through the clothes there with a clatter of plastic hangers. “I finally understand how Tan France feels.”

“Who?”

“Don’t worry about it.” She pulls out a brown cardigan, cable knit with cuffed sleeves. “This?”

Jon sits up on his elbows, wrinkling his nose. “Bit too librarian, isn’t it?”

She rolls her eyes. “Isn’t that what you are?”

“Archivist. It’s different.” For starters, the people in the institute’s library seem to have a lot more fun, based on the amount of picked over donut boxes and sandwich trays that pass through the breakroom like ghosts of office meetings past. He’s not sure who is organizing these lunch meetings, but they’re certainly not doing it for the archives. Elias gave him a mint once, but he hadn’t really been inclined to eat it. “And that doesn’t mean I want it to be my first impression.”

Especially considering the little lie about him being a detective—not that M ever believed it, which is still mildly insulting, even if it isn’t true. He’s already been working on how to spin it into a silly misunderstanding so as not to look completely deranged, but the truth is hardly any more normal. Or _cool_.

Jon frowns and touches the gray spot on top of his head. _Cool_ might be a bit too ambitious. “Do you think I should dye my hair?” He muses.

“What? No, don’t be weird.” She pulls out a jacket, gray tweed that’s almost green, with brown suede patches at the elbows. “What about this? The sexy professor look.” She laughs before she even gets all the words out.

He snorts. “I don’t know if that’s what I’m going for, exactly.”

“It’s a vibe, Jon. Vibes are what’s important.” She holds it up until he gets the message and drags himself back to his feet. “Absolutely critical to a first date.”

He takes the hanger from her, surveying the jacket critically. It’s not like he’s never worn it before, but the stakes seem infinitely higher than before. “What vibes did I have on our first date?”

“I—” Georgie stops, her mouth closing so fast her teeth click. She puts her hands on his shoulders and smiles beatifically, as innocent as a cherub. He wishes he knew so little as to fall for it. “I’m going to save that answer for another time. My speech at your wedding, maybe.”

Jon scowls and puts his hands on her wrists, but doesn’t pull her off. It ends up a strange kind of dance, the jacket hanging between them, the hanger digging into his fingers at an awkward angle. “It’s very funny you think that I’d let you give a speech about me at anything less than my funeral.”

“It’s even funnier that you think you could stop me.”

*

Friday passes like a hurricane: slow and catastrophic.

The restaurant M chose is within walking distance from the Institute, which is convenient, except that it means he has to wear his date outfit to work. Which shouldn’t be a problem—it’s really barely nicer than normal—but somehow Jon still feels like he’s wearing a spotlight. Worse than that, Elias notices. 

“Good morning, Jon,” Elias says when they pass each other in the hall, a mug of coffee in his hand. “New jacket?”

Jon tugs self-consciously at the hem. “No, ah, just found it in the back of the closet.” 

Elias’ eyes crinkle at the corners, and he can never tell if it’s a smile or something more self-satisfied. “Of course,” he says. 

Which is unsettling, the way conversations with Elias are typically unsettling, but all things considered, not outside the realm of normal day to day Institute activity. Today, he thinks, nursing a bundle of nerves, is going to be excruciatingly slow. He’s going to have to whittle away the minutes until he can finally leave and finally, _finally_ meet M. 

He’s wrong. 

It starts with Lewis Abernathy. 

Lewis Abernathy is a tall man, pale complexion, affinity for pastel polo shirts and boat shoes. He also wants to give a statement, which already minorly throws Jon for a loop. He’s had a couple of people come to give statements, but largely he’s been so busy just trying to untangle the mess of old ones Gertrude left behind that he hasn’t had time for much else. Besides texting on the job a frankly irresponsible amount, but—well, nobody’s perfect. 

Mr. Abernathy has walked him through an endless diatribe about his work at a software firm and is halfway through explaining his seemingly unrelated problem with grubs appearing in whatever he tried to eat, from the lowest frozen burrito to five star dining. Grubs, he says. He takes a bite, and there they are. 

And then Lewis Abernathy projectile vomits all over the desk, the tape recorder. Jon.

Everything.

By the time the paramedics arrive and take Mr. Abernathy away, still vomiting grubs (how can there be anything left in the man’s body?), the damage is extensive. To him. To his office. To his archival assistants.

To his _jacket_.

“Why _does_ the Institute have a chemical wash station?” Martin muses as he peers into an ancient looking mirror with an ornate, overwrought gold frame hanging on the wall.

They’re posted up in artefact storage like refugees from a grub-infested war, still dripping sadly. It had been Sasha’s idea. There was no pleasant way to get home while covered in a stranger’s vomit, but there was a chemical wash station in artefact storage that served as a halfway decent shower, if you were desperate enough. Jon thought he was desperate until he felt the first deluge of cold water, but by then it was too late.

Now he’s dressed from the clothes he keeps in a file drawer for the nights he ends up working late and sleeping on the cot in the back of the archives, which means he’s wearing plaid flannel sleep pants and a What The Ghost? t-shirt that’s a size too big, which really just completes the pathetic tableau that his life has become. His carefully curated outfit sits in a plastic bag slumped against his feet. 

Martin, meanwhile, has decided that this is the moment to obsess over his appearance. He’s been standing in front of the mirror—almost certainly supposedly haunted, if it’s in artefacts storage—for the better part of fifteen minutes, carefully combing his wet hair and muttering something about how the curls dry. 

Tim emerges from deeper in the storage area, bearing a black garbage bag like a very mundane specter of death. Jon had managed to scrounge up an extra shirt that fit Sasha, but both Tim and Martin got stuck with t-shirts commemorating an Institute fun run that no one can remember happening within recent memory. 

“Sasha says there’s an incinerator downstairs. Guess they use it when artefacts get too spooky to keep or something.” Tim holds out the garbage bag. “We thought it’s probably best to just...get rid of everything.”

His poor jacket. Now that it’s unsalvageable, he’s finding that he quite liked it. “Probably best,” Jon agrees with a sigh, dumping his plastic bag into its final resting place. 

He slumps back against the wall, scrubbing his hands over his face. It’s okay. It’s fine. He can still salvage this day. It’s just going to be slightly more complicated than it was before. He pulls his phone out of his pocket, blessedly sans vomit. 

A:  
_Slight change of plans.  
Had a bit of an incident at work. I just need to run home and change clothes first._

Which is annoying, considering he’ll have to backtrack almost entirely back to the Institute again, but not as annoying as showing up wearing pajama bottoms and dress shoes. He cringes preemptively. 

A:  
_Hope that’s okay!_

Shit. Why did he put an exclamation point? He doesn’t do exclamation points. Now M is going to know he’s nervous. _Shit._

A:  
_Shouldn’t be too late though.  
Just let me know if that doesn’t work._

Nothing from M—which is fine, he’s probably busy, people are usually busy at two in the afternoon—but it doesn’t help that Martin’s phone is buzzing like it’s trying to hop off the bench. Jon scowls down at his screen. Oh, well, good to know that _Martin_ is popular at least. 

He stands up, pocketing his phone. “I’m going downstairs to check on the cleanup,” he says. Maybe he’ll record a statement, if they’re done bleaching his office. That always helps calm his nerves.

*

It’s 5:30 PM and everything is going to be completely fine.

“Completely fine,” Martin assures himself breathlessly. “ _Completely_ fine.”

Sure, he hasn’t left work yet because Elias had some last minute paperwork to fill out about the grub-fest that afternoon. Sure, he’s wearing a t-shirt and a pair of old jeans pulled from the lost and found while his very nice pink button-down is being turned to ash. Sure, he’s—

Fine. He’s fine. 

A’s going to be late anyway, which actually affords him time to get changed himself, though at this rate he’ll probably have to duck into a store and just buy something halfway decent rather than get stuck in the same endless loop of potential outfits that’d landed him the pink button-down. He checks the time again compulsively. 5:31 PM.

He tries to hurry as professionally and sensibly as he can, all while fussing with his hair to make sure he doesn't mess it up again, but he still manages to hip check his desk and nearly run over one of the library interns in the process. He should probably be more careful before he…

“...I know you’re having fun too, you’re just too proud to admit it.”

Martin hesitates where two hallways branch. It’s the man from the other day—the fishy grandpa guy, which is a terrible way to think of someone that he’ll never say out loud, but it’s not untrue. He’s even wearing what appears to be a sea captain’s coat, even though it’s rather warm in the archives today, though that could be Martin’s own nerves coming into play. 

“I’m not having fun, Peter, I’m trying to run an institute.” Oh, he didn’t even notice Elias. He stands in Peter’s shadow, half a head shorter. He should have to look up to talk to Peter, but apparently refuses to. “Your interference is merely a charming, if pointless, distraction.”

Peter laughs and Martin’s ears pop strangely, making him grimace. Well, that’s all a bit strange—

“Martin,” Elias says loftily, without looking back, and Martin nearly jumps out of his skin. “Don’t you have an appointment you’re running late to?”

“Yes! Yes, um, sorry—” He nearly trips over his own feet ducking down the opposite hall.

“I like him,” Peter says enthusiastically, his voice following Martin down the hall like fog caught on his heels. 

“You would.”

Martin shakes himself, trying to clear the wrongheadedness that creeps in every so often working in the archives, recently whenever Peter Whoever-He-Is drops by for a visit. Elias is right. He’s already wasted time he doesn’t have, and now the elevator doors are closing within him.

“Wait! Hold the door! Please!” His footfalls echo against the cold tile as he runs the remaining distance. He has to turn sideways to squeeze through the closing doors and they still bounce off of him, the elevator giving an annoyed _ding!_ as they open again rather than decide to cut him in half. Small mercies. 

“S-sorry,” Martin wheezes, winded and flustered and oh his hair is _definitely_ out of place now. “I guess you didn’t hear me—oh.” Jonathan Sims stares back at him from the back corner of the elevator, a little startled but mostly just annoyed. Well, nothing new there. “Oh, erm. Hello, Jon.” He clears his throat. “Going up?”

The archives are in the basement. Up is the only option. Internally, Martin’s entire soul cringes.  
“...yes,” Jon says dryly. 

“Right.” He goes to press the button, but it’s already lit up. Right. Of course. Jon was in the elevator before him. Martin clears his throat again and stands back, his hands clasped awkwardly in front of him as he tries, as he’s tried most of his life, to take up the least amount of space possible. It goes how it usually goes when you’re him: poorly. 

Don’t say anything. Don’t say anything. Do not say—

“That was some day, wasn’t it?” Martin says idiotically, like an idiot. He regrets it instantaneously. 

Jon gives him a flat look that—well, usually Jon’s looks are dismissive or annoyed or, on the good days, distracted. Today he just looks _tired_. He exhales in what might have been a snort, which is almost a huff, which is adjacent to a laugh. Martin’s heart does a flip despite himself. “You could say that,” he says. There’s a pause and then Jon mutters something.

“Sorry? Didn’t catch that?”

“I had _grubs_ in my _hair_ ,” Jon says, louder this time. His hand goes to the gray spot on top of his head that he thinks no one notices. 

Martin opens his mouth to say something vaguely comforting when the elevator stops. Doesn’t ding. Doesn’t open the doors. Just...stops. 

And then the lights go out. 

“Oh no,” Martin says in his usual pleasant, well-isn’t-this-a-mess way. The power must have surged. It’s happened before—something about faulty wiring, Elias sent a rather vague email about it last month—but usually it resolved itself in about twenty minutes or so.

His brain sparks. Twenty minutes…

_”Shit!”_ Martin says, the same moment Jon lunges forward to slam his finger against the emergency call button, which isn’t even lit up. The only reason they can see a damn thing is from the glow of Jon’s phone in his hand. 

“Why isn’t it working? What’s the point of an emergency button that doesn’t have it’s own power source?” Jon is still smashing it relentlessly. 

Martin forces himself to take a deep breath. It’s fine. _It’s still fine._ He’ll just skip the outfit change and hope that this entire misadventure is a funny and charming story that will make A laugh (he desperately wants to hear him laugh) instead of run the other way. All he has to hope is that they don’t kick him out of the restaurant for crimes against fashion and good sense. 

He’ll just type out a quick message about running late and—

The message bounces back. No signal. 

“What do you _mean_ there’s no wifi in here?” There’s never any signal in the archives, but usually the institute’s wifi is shockingly good, considering the amount of outdated technology they have just lying around. 

“Are you serious?” Now Jon’s got his phone out, the combined light of their screens filling the darkened elevator with a ghostly sort of light. “Shit, shit, _shit_!”

“It’s fine!” Martin says, his voice cracking just a little bit. God, as if his anxiety isn’t bad enough on its own, he doesn't need Jon’s feeding it too. “Twenty minutes tops and the power will be back on—”

“I don’t _have_ twenty minutes, _Martin_ ,” Jon snaps. “I have a meet—a _meeting_ that I’m already running late for.”

Who has a meeting on a Friday night? Does he—no, Jonathan Sims wouldn't have a date. Would he? The thought makes Martin vaguely nauseous. No, he is definitely not imagining Jon on a date with some faceless, beautiful person, laughing over cocktails and lit softly by fairy lights. He really does not have time for that right now. Also, he’s not supposed to care anymore. Which he doesn’t. Obviously. 

“We all have _meetings_ we’d rather be at, Jon, but yelling at me isn’t going to get us there any faster,” Martin snaps back, the words leaving all in a rush. He leans back against the elevator wall and slides to the ground, his phone angled away so the light doesn't reveal his furiously pink face. God, he didn’t know he had that in him. He exhales gustily. “All we can do is wait.”

There’s a heavy beat of silence, and then a rustle as Jon slides down to sit against the wall opposite him. 

“...Sorry.” Jon says it with all the joy of having a tooth extracted. 

“What was that?”

“Oh, you heard me.”

Martin grins to himself, enjoying the small spark of satisfaction among what’s been entirely a disaster of a day. He wants to go back in time and slap himself for thinking that Friday night was the safest option. This is the last time he tries to do anything after work while he’s still employed by the Magnus Institute. “It’s fine.” God, he has to stop saying the word fine. “It’s been…”

He loses his train of thought, looking across the elevator where Jon sits on the floor, his long legs pulled up nearly to his chin to keep from meeting Martin’s in the middle. He looks like he’s coming home from his first sleepover at a friend’s house, bedraggled and sleep-deprived, every piece of his outfit at odds with the others. His too-big shirt gapes awkwardly at the neck and his shiny brown dress shoes poke out from beneath folds of red plaid flannel. His hair is sticking up on one side where it dried strangely after the grub incident, making him look like he just woke up. 

Martin can’t help it. He laughs. 

Jon’s eyes go wide, startled, before settling into something closer to taken aback. “What?” He demands. He tugs self-consciously at his shirt collar. “What is it? None of this is funny, Martin!” 

“I’m sorry, it’s just—is kind of _is_ though?” God, he’s crying. Martin rubs his eyes with the flat of his hand in between peels of laughter, clutching his phone against his chest. “How can one day go _so badly_?”

“That’s not—that’s nothing to _laugh_ about—” Jon starts, but Martin can hear his voice wobbling as he tries to smother his own laughter. “A man vomited grubs—he might be _dead_ —”

That does it. Martin wheezes like he’s been struck in the chest and Jon dissolves into what can only be described as _giggling_ , which is so unexpected that Martin doubles over laughing again. 

“When he—” Martin says between gasps for breath. “When he started yelling and the grubs—”

“They just _flew everywhere_ —”

“I think one landed in Tim’s _eye_ —”

It takes several minutes for the laughter to subside, the elevator gone entirely dark as their phone screens go back into rest mode. Even still, stray giggles bubble up like carbonation in the strange, not-uncomfortable silence. 

Jon sighs and there’s a soft thunk as his head rests back against the wall. “I don’t think I’m making my meeting,” he says.

Martin stares up at the dark ceiling, his stomach churning. “No,” he says with a matching sigh. “Me either.”

*

It’s going on seven by the time they emerge from the institute, blinking in the street lights. They stand awkwardly on the steps, both unsure how to leave with the strange sense of elevator camaraderie rapidly fading in the light of reality.

“Well,” Martin says. “See you Monday.” He starts to wave dorkily before forcing his hand back down.

“Right,” Jon says. “See you.”

One more awkward beat and they both turn in opposite directions. 

Martin waits until he’s at the end of the street to pull out his phone, fumbling with it. He briefly registers that there are no messages from A wondering where he is, but he’s too busy typing to really think about it.

M:  
_i a m sOs ORORY_

A:  
_I swear can explain._

M:  
_there was this thing at work and thent his other ting and_

A:  
_I tried to message you but there was no signal, I swear I didn’t mean to stand you up.  
Oh, sorry.  
You go first._

M:  
_oh  
so youre not at the restaurant hating my guts?_

A:  
_No.  
You haven’t blocked me for being an idiot who can’t get to a restaurant on time?_

M:  
_i’m not sure you even can block on this app actually  
but no haha  
ok ok sorry im just recovering from my heart attack  
today has been_

A:  
_A day?_

M:  
_you could say that again_

A:  
_I know the feeling.  
Trust me.  
Let’s...regroup tomorrow?  
Lunch?_

M:  
_yeah ok yeah thats a good idea  
lunch it is  
(:_

A:  
_(:_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh, you KNEW we weren't getting that date THAT easily. there's still torture to be had. luckily 'gets stuck in an elevator together' is another favorite trope of mine
> 
> thanks again for the kudos and comments!! I love every one of them (and I'm getting better at responding to them. it's a process). as always you can also find me on tumblr at [divineatrophy](https://divineatrophy.tumblr.com/) or twitter a [blueskidoodle!](https://twitter.com/blueskiddoodle)


	6. Chapter 6

Sometimes he likes to go into work on Saturdays. 

Well, _like_ is a strong word. It doesn’t exactly fill him with joy, but frankly, after the mess Gertrude left him to clean up it’s _necessary_. If he’s going to sort out the archives within his lifetime, that is. Besides, it _is_ a little nice having the archives to himself, with nothing but the soft whir-click of the tape recorder and the shuffle of the cleaning staff to keep him company. 

Needless to say, he decides to take this Saturday off. 

Which is why Jon is less than happy to have his phone go off at six-thirty in the morning, and even less to hear Elias voice in his ear, telling him that he needs to come in. Grubs stain, as it turns out, and the institute has decided that this is a perfect time to replace the carpeting in the archives. Meaning the staff has to come in to remove anything they don’t want disturbed. On a Saturday morning. The day of his rainchecked probably-possibly-potentially date with M. 

Messy work, carpet installation. Jon resists the urge to throw his phone across the room and go back to sleep.

But he’s a consummate professional, despite any and all recent evidence to the contrary, so he drags himself out of bed and into the shower with all the grace of a dead man walking. He only notices all the notifications on his phone after he’s gotten dressed, most of them from the night before, after he fell into an early, grub-trauma-induced sleep. Most of them are from Georgie, slyly asking how last night went (answer: poorly), M verifying their new plans (answer: a little cafe near the institute, which he’s grateful for now, in case carpet installation prep this morning goes long), and a text from Tim this morning, rather colorfully asking if Elias is fucking with them (answer: unfortunately, he doubts it). 

They assemble like the world’s saddest army, their moods ranging from vaguely irritated to barely conscious. Only Elias appears all the way awake, dressed in his typical pressed pinstripe suit and strangely insincere as he apologetically gives them their marching orders.

“This carpet hasn’t been changed since I started at the institute,” Elias says, laughing a little too indulgently for something that isn’t even really a joke. “We should be thankful for Mr. Abernathy for the opportunity to renovate a little.”

The opportunity to move all their things up to artefact storage, which no one but Elias is in a good mood about, probably because he’s not the one actually doing it. Surprisingly, Sasha is the worst for wear, with dark bags under her eyes and her hair piled into a messy bun on top of her head.

“Had a little too much fun last night, Sash?” Tim jokes gingerly and nearly loses his head for it. After that, they let her pack boxes in peace.

And there are more than enough boxes. The problem, they discover once they’ve moved out the desks and their various accoutrements, aren’t the boxes carefully filled with tapes and papers and strange bits and baubles that evidently hadn’t been quite spooky enough to send to artefact storage. The problem is keeping them all in order, Jon’s nascent organizational system like a babe in the woods in the face of three archival assistants who want nothing more than to get it over with and go home.

Which would be fine if it weren’t for—

“Martin, that’s not where that goes—”

“Martin, you’re getting them all out of order—”

“Martin, be careful, those are fragile—”

“ _Martin—_ ”

“ _What?_ ” Martin snaps, whirling around to face him, his face flushed and his hair mussed from hauling boxes. His carefully arranged curls from the night before are closer to frizz now. “What am I doing wrong _now_?”

Jon pulls up short, startled. Frankly, he’d had every intention of avoiding Martin after their strange, rather unprofessional encounter in the elevator, but it was difficult when he insisted on rushing through everything like the archives were on fire. Jon would love to get the hell out of there and find something a little nicer than a now slightly sweaty button-down to wear to lunch, but not at the expense of months of organizational work. He has to draw the line _somewhere._

Martin seems to notice his tone a moment too late. He winces. “Sorry. What is it?” His voice ticks up a little too high. 

”You. Erm.” Jon points, carefully maintaining a safe distance. “Have a spider on your collar.” 

“What?” In an instant Martin’s irritation dissolves into puzzlement. He looks down. “Oh. Hello there.”

“Do you want me to…” Jon holds up the rolled up magazine he’s got in one hand like a club. He almost makes a move to swat at it, but aborts the motion halfway. He jerks back another step for good measure. “I’ll get Tim.”

“No. Jon—it’s just a spider.” He actually reaches up and coaxes it onto his finger. Dear _God_. He smiles at it like it’s a puppy and not a little monster with far too many legs. “I’m taking him outside. This is no place for you, little fellow.” He practically coos at it. 

“...Fine,” Jon acquiesces, largely because if Martin is going to insist on releasing the spider into the wild, he’d prefer it be sooner rather than later. He checks the time. They’re still on track to finish well before he’s supposed to meet M at 12:30, but the morning is getting older by the minute. “But don’t take too long.”

Martin mutters something that sounds distinctly unflattering as he turns away. 

*

M:  
_i swear i am trying sO HARD not to be late this time  
this is so not normal i promise_

A:  
_I told you, it’s fine, you lunatic. I understand far too well.  
Yesterday was…_

M:  
_cursed?_

A:  
_Sounds about right.  
What happened yesterday anyway? Sorry, I should have asked. _

M:  
_oh! just a bit of a vomit incident at work  
NOT me haha i was not the one vomiting  
some other stuff too but it was all a bit...vomit related _

A:  
_Oh, strange. We had a...vomit incident as well._

M:  
_disgusting!  
do you think something is going around?? _

A:  
_Probably not, our case was pretty...exceptional._

M:  
_exceptional vomit incident is the name of my indie band_

A:  
_Sounds experimental._

M:  
_oh absolutely.  
uh oh i just heard my boss laugh  
could be a bad sign_

A:  
_A particularly evil laugh?_

M:  
_no, closer to...a chortle? no, that sounds evil. a chuckle?  
he’s been doing it a weird amount lately actually  
its kind of nice_

A:  
_And that’s a bad sign?_

M:  
_it means that something is out of sync with the universe probably  
a sign of the pending apocalypse_

A:  
_This is the way the world ends.  
Not with a bang but with a chuckle._

M:  
_oh you bastard now he's going to wonder why i’m laughing_

*

A combination of Jon’s religious dedication to his organizational system and leftover chaos from Gertrude’s reign means that the job takes twice as long as it should, but Martin still manages to extract himself like a sore tooth safely before his meeting time.

_Meeting._ God, Jon’s really gotten to his head now. Date. He’s going on a _date_. Probably. 

The idea makes him vaguely nauseous. In a good way.

He spends the extra time fixing his hair in the archive’s bathroom and changes his shirt. Martin Blackwood learns from his mistakes (some of the time, at least) and he’d brought an extra shirt, tucked safely in his bag, even before he’d known he was going to spend the morning hauling boxes. 

He actually manages to arrive _early_ , miracle of all miracles, and grab a seat by the window. He shoots A message about where he is and then sets his phone down, barely resisting the urge to destroy his own nail beds with anxiety-fueled restlessness. It had taken everything he’d had not to suggest some sort of visual cue, like a blue shirt or an amusingly patterned necktie, or both at once, but that ran the risk of A suggesting they just trade pictures and _that_ ran the risk of him not showing up at all. Not that Martin thinks he’s _bad_ looking, per se, but, well, you don’t don’t come off of a lifetime of self-worth and body issues unscathed. Better just not to risk it. 

“Martin?”

His head whips up so fast his neck cracks.

Jon stands awkwardly in the middle of the cafe, his phone in his hand and a strange expression on his face. He’s brushed his hair—which Martin isn’t supposed to notice but he does, because he’s Martin and old habits die very hard. He _hasn’t_ fixed his crooked shirt collar, but Martin’s learned not to mention that. It takes Martin a moment to register that he's really there, and not an anxiety-induced hallucination trying to convince him that he's still trapped in the archives, breathing in dust.

In retrospect, he reacts rather badly. 

“Are you _serious?_ ” Martin snaps, because his nerves were already well frayed around the edges even _before_ he got there and, well, this _cannot_ be happening. 

Jonathan Sims cannot be here to ruin his date.

“What do you want?” Martin says when Jon just stares at him, looking vaguely lost. “Have you come to yell at me for putting a box in the wrong corner? Could it not wait until Monday? I’ve already given up quite a bit of my weekend for dusty tapes and file folders.” He huffs, his hands trembling a little with unspent adrenaline. It’s quite a rant coming from him, one he’s rarely bold enough to actually voice outside of the circuitous speeches in his head, but Jon hardly seems to notice. 

“I...didn’t know you frequented here,” Jon says haltingly. His eyes flicker around the cafe.

“I _don’t,_ ” he says pointedly. God, he’s always known that Jon can’t take a hint, but this is ridiculous. He glances at the time and full body cringes. He’s not introducing A to his boss that he is (was! _was!_ ) minorly in love with. No. Absolutely not. Not today. “I’m meeting someone. So if you could—you know—” He makes a shooing motion.

Jon either doesn’t know common body language or he’s insistent on doing the opposite of what Martin wants for the rest of his life, because he takes the chair opposite him. He leans forward conspiratorially, his elbows on the table. “Did you tell anyone about the...vomit incident yesterday?” He enunciates the last words with strange emphasis. 

Martin can’t help the incredulous look on his face. “Yes?” he says. Well, just A, but it certainly counts. He glances nervously at the door before realizing he doesn't have any clue what he’s looking for anyway. “Sorry, is that a problem? Do I have to..sign something?” 

Why this? Why _now_? It’s not like a man vomiting grubs was the strangest thing he’s encountered since working at the institute—quite unfortunately. _They should not be having this conversation._

“No, not quite. It’s…” Jon hesitates again, pushing his glasses up his nose, which is infuriatingly endearing, because Martin _isn’t supposed to notice these things_ and he _isn’t supposed to care_ and he definitely _isn’t supposed to be having this conversation right now, goddammit._ Jon opens his mouth. 

And then it all kind of. Boils over. 

“No, Jon! You don’t get to snip at me all morning for mixing up your precious boxes and then just— _invite_ yourself to lunch to talk about grubs! Or whatever!” Martin’s cheeks are definitely pink now, and it’s a smidge hard to breath, but he barrels on. “I have plans! I have a _life_ outside of work, believe it or not! And I’m off the clock, which means I do _not_ have to listen to you.” 

Martin jerks to his feet before Jon can even begin to respond—not that he looks like he’s about to, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging ajar—and his chair scrapes against the linoleum with an ugly screech. “You know what? You take the table,” Martin says, shouldering his bag. “Enjoy it. I need to get some air anyway.” 

“Martin, you—” Jon starts to call after him, but he’s already out the door, his heart hammering against his ribs like it means to leap out and onto the dirty London sidewalk. 

So much for not being late, but A will understand. Surely he will. Martin can’t be seen in a state like this, especially not if it’s going to be his first impression. His cheeks are flushed and he’s breathing hard, his hair surely a frizzy mess all over again. If there’s any way to ensure that A will turn right around on sight, it’s that. He just needs a walk to cool his head. And give Jon time to take a hint for once in his life and _clear out._

He reaches for his phone to shoot A a quick excuse—and freezes. It’s not there. Not in his hand, not in his pocket, not in his bag. Probably because it’s still sitting on a cafe table. He can still picture it there, the screen facing up so he could see if he got a message from A. Martin turns on his heel and runs. 

His feet pound against the pavement as he bolts for the cafe, dodging pedestrians with the grace of a runaway train. The rubber soles of his shoes squeak as he skids to a stop, nearly launching himself into traffic through sheer momentum in the process. He grabs for the door, only for someone inside to open it first. 

“Sorry, sorry. No, please, you first,” he wheezes, standing polite aside as a little family herds their two extremely slow children out the door and out of his _way_. He flashes them a polite, tight-lipped smile before they’re safely clear. He launches himself through the door and stops short. 

The cafe table is empty. No Jon. 

And no phone.

* 

Sunday morning, Martin knocks on the door to Jon’s office.

There’s no reason that he’d be working on a Sunday, except that he’s Jon. There’s no reason to expect him to have his phone, except for that no one had turned it into the staff at the cafe and at five years old with an ugly spiderweb crack in the corner, it’s not really worth stealing. 

Which leaves Jon. Which left Martin, sick with anxiety for the rest of Saturday, furiously googling whether lovr had some sort of desktop access. It doesn’t. It’s just a shitty app with barely enough functional code to hold itself together and he’s the idiot who didn’t take A’s phone number when he was offered it. Because it was supposed to be simpler that way. Ha. 

He’d stayed at the cafe for as long as he could, sipping overpriced tea and looking up every time the bell on the door jingled, looking for someone that was looking for someone too. Nothing. If A was texting him, it didn’t matter. 

“Come in.” Jon’s voice is muffled by the door. 

He’s sitting behind his desk when Martin opens the door, looking...different. Dressed down, Martin supposes distantly, past the turmoil of his own inner monologue. And not just because he’s wearing a t-shirt, which is rare enough. It’s in his face. His expression seems less guarded then usual, but also somehow heavier. His eyebrows are pulled together a little, the crease between them in danger of becoming permanent. He looks thoughtful and...sad, almost. 

Not his problem. 

“Do you have it?” Martin asks stiffly. 

Jon pulls his phone out of a desk drawer and holds it out to him, forcing Martin to step further into the office. “I didn’t want anyone to...steal it,” he says lamely, even though he could have just as easily left it with the cafe staff. Or waited with it. Or done anything but run off with it. 

Better yet, he could have not shown up at the cafe at all. The more Martin thinks about it, the more he’s certain that Jon had to have followed him there. But why? Jon is pedantic, but he’s not _that_ passionate about making sure Martin knows when he’s made a mistake. Did he know that Martin was going on a date? Was he _jealous?_

No, definitely not that. 

Maybe it's stupid, blaming Jon for the abject failure the last two days have been, but he does it anyway. He's already blamed himself, and the load is getting a little heavy. All he knows is that none of this would have happened if Jon had left well enough alone and Martin had sat at his cafe table, unaccosted, until A arrived. He _knows_ it. He's already imagined the whole alternate timeline involving marriage and kids and a yappy little dog that crumbled to dust when Jon walked through the cafe door. 

Martin all but snatches the phone out of Jon's hand. His battery is worse than useless, but there’s still a little life left in it. He should wait until he’s left the office at least, but he doesn’t. He's already waited long enough, and he's going to throw up if A is left thinking he's an asshole any longer. He needs to apologize— _again_ —to throw himself down at A’s feet and beg for mercy, to— 

There’s one notification waiting for him. 

A:  
_Something came up. Sorry._

His heart plummets. It’s a physical sensation, wrapping its hand around his heart and yanking it downwards, through the floor of the archives and deep down into whatever it is that lurks below London. A wasn’t waiting for him, wasn’t furious at being stood up. He’d ditched Martin first, and without even an excuse. Martin grips his phone a little tighter, the words seared into the backs of his eyelids. 

His cheeks burn. He really was that stupid, wasn't he? Always so _stupid_. He should have known better than to think anything would be different this time. So long as he's part of the equation, it's going to end in disaster. He should have figured that out a long time ago. 

“Is something wrong?” Jon asks, his voice subdued. He’s watching him, his eyes burning holes in the back of his neck, but Martin doesn’t look up. 

“No,” he says softly, without conviction. “Nothing. Just—it’s nothing.” He shakes his head and turns back toward the door. He should--eat something, probably. He'd been too anxious to eat much the day before. Suppose that isn't much of a problem now. 

“Martin, I—” Jon’s voice is strangely unguarded, strangely sincere. He doesn’t talk that way. To Sasha, maybe, or Tim on a very good day, but not to Martin. It almost makes him stop short. A few months earlier and it very well would have. “I know I haven’t always been very—very fair to you—” 

“Jon,” Martin says like a sigh, holding up his hand to stop him. “Sorry, but I just—I really don’t want to hear it today.” 

The door shuts with a click behind him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we can have a little angst...as a treat. welcome to the hellzone, or the MISUNDERSTANDING phase. the trials we must go through to get to the good part. take my hand we'll get through this together. 
> 
> thank you as always for the comments and kudos!! y'all are perfect and I cherish you. 
> 
> you can also find me on tumblr at [divineatrophy](https://divineatrophy.tumblr.com/), twitter at [blueskiddoodle](https://twitter.com/blueskiddoodle), or, if you look very carefully, in the background of your favorite painting.


	7. Chapter 7

Monday morning, Elias buys them a pastry tray.

“Do you think it’s poisoned?” Tim says, peering down at the perfect rows of donuts and danishes and pastries too decadent to have commonly known names. The real deal, judging from the elegant logo on the box, not grocery store bakery.

“Maybe he feels bad for making us come in on the weekend,” Sasha says, but she looks just as dubious. 

“Or he’s trying to poison us.”

“Or he’s trying to poison us,” Sasha agrees.

They stand poised over the box like vultures, their hands twitching greedily even if their heads are still holding them back. There’s something sacred about an untouched pastry tray sitting in the breakroom, like fresh snow. The first pastry must be selected with great care and deliberation.

Jon grabs a bear claw on his way past without slowing down.

Sasha squawks like a bird and Tim actually gasps and makes an aborted motion to snatch it back. “Careful!” Tim calls to Jon’s back. “Could be poisoned!”

“Good,” Jon grunts, and his office door slams shut behind him.

*

They need to paint the walls.

It’s the carpet’s fault. The new carpet looks so clean, even if it’s an almost identical pattern of industrial gray on slightly lighter industrial gray that had been there before. It makes the walls look dingy in comparison. It probably doesn’t help that Jon’s been staring at it for the better part of an hour, his mind more than occupied as he tries to process the past weekend. 

Simply put: it had not gone well. 

He knew something was off the moment he stepped into the cafe, because Martin was there. Martin, who brings his lunch to work to save money on eating out, lumpy sandwiches in saran wrap hidden at the back of the breakroom fridge. But then, it was Saturday, and none of them expected to be dragged into work that morning. He must have decided to treat himself. Unfortunate, but understandable. Jon convinced himself not to be annoyed, already constructing an excuse to tell M as to why they had to go to a different cafe. It ran the risk of sounding deranged, but the risk of Martin noticing him and reporting back to Tim and Sasha was far higher, and far more dangerous. It occurred to him, vaguely, that most people don’t approach workplace social dynamics like a warzone. 

And then Jon checked his phone. 

M would be sitting by the window, he promised. Which was all fine and good, except for the fact that the cafe was rather small. It only had one window. 

That...was when things started going badly. 

Jon leans back in his chair until it squeaks pitifully—another thing that needs to be replaced—and presses his fingertips against his eyes. He seriously considered taking a sick day today, if only to avoid—

The door opens and Jon sits back up so quickly he bangs his elbow against the desk. He bites the tip of his tongue and swallows a hiss of pain, masking it by clearing his throat as he hurries to look busy. Sasha steps inside, carrying a box.

Just Sasha. Christ. Okay. Now to wait for his pulse to slow down again. “Sorry, what?” Jon blinks, realizing she’d spoken in between the start of his heart attack and the end of it. 

“Just found some misplaced files,” Sasha says cheerfully, holding up the box. “Someone in artefacts storage must have messed with them after all. Don’t worry, I’ll just put them back in their places. Don’t mind me.”

“Right,” Jon says distractedly, aimlessly shuffling papers. He rubs his finger against the tape recorder buttons, trying to buff off the scuffs on the play button. “Thank you.”

They persist like that for several long minutes—clearing their throats and shuffling things that don’t need to be shuffled and staring pensively at other things in an important manner. Finally, when he’s run out of things to not-do, Jon stands up. He crosses the room and closes the office door.

Sasha looks up like she’s only just noticed him. “Oh! Sorry, just got absorbed, I guess,” she says as if she hasn’t been moving the same files from one end of the cabinet to the other and back again for five solid minutes. “Something the matter?” She asks innocently. 

Jon closes his eyes. Exhales through his nose. Opens them again. “I think…” he says mincingly, the words like glass in his mouth. “I’ve made...a mistake.”

Sasha’s wide-eyed innocence turns off like she flipped a switch. “You _didn’t,_ ” she groans. “Did you? Is that why Martin looks so sad?” 

“I—how did you know it’s about Martin?” He actually sounds offended. Old habit, even if she’s entirely right. Which, he supposes, is part of his problem. Actually, now that he’s thinking about it, hadn’t she mentioned Martin the last time they spoke about his...his… _conundrum?_ He feels the blood drain from his face. “Did you—did you know it was him _the whole time?_ ” 

“ _No._ ” Sasha rolls her eyes. “But I got a pretty good idea when the both of you started coming to me for advice on weirdly similar relationship problems. And Tim only knew about the app at all because he read the disappearance statement. It wasn’t too hard to put together.” 

Jon sputters uselessly, trying to get a grip on one of his rapidly fraying threads of thought. “ _Relationship_ is hardly the word—”

Sasha waves his efforts away. “What did you do?” she demands. “Did you break his heart when you found out it was him? Jon, you _ass_. You’ve been texting him non-stop for weeks, I know you have. You’re not as subtle as you think.”

“I _didn’t_ ” Jon says, a little too forcefully, before she can rail a little longer about his various shortcomings and personality flaws. This would probably be a good time to remember that she’s supposed to be his subordinate, but he needs her help far more than he needs his pride. “I didn’t...do anything.”

She blinks, anger giving way to suspicion. “What do you mean?” she asks. “You didn’t…” Her eyebrows furrow and her eyes search his face for answers. Realization dawns all at once. “He still doesn't know it’s you?”

Jon grimaces. “Not as far as I know, no,” he says awkwardly. 

It had been an act of cowardice as much as it was an experiment, sending M the text after Martin had disappeared, leaving his phone on the cafe table in front of Jon. _Something came up. Sorry._ So callous and cold that thinking about it still inspires a wave of guilt not unlike heartburn. But necessary, he’d thought, watching Martin’s phone light up with the notification. Jon needs time to think, even if it means that A has to be a dick. Otherwise, Martin will ask why A never showed up and Jon won’t have answers.

He thought it had been a little bit of a mercy too, assuring Martin that he couldn’t stand A up if A stood him up first. The look on Martin’s face when he read the message had dissuaded Jon from that idea rather pointedly. 

Now Sasha’s just confused. “Why didn’t you tell him?” she says. “Jon, he’s going to find out eventually.”

Actually, keeping this a secret until the day he dies _was_ an option he mulled over, especially during the early hours of the morning when he couldn’t sleep. But no, it’s just not realistic. They work in the same office, for pity’s sake. What’s to stop him from having a little too much fun at the office holiday party (unlikely, he’s never had fun at an office party, he’s not sure anyone has, but it’s still a risk) and blabbing about it like an idiot? It’ll only get worse the longer he hides it, now that he knows the truth. 

That and...it’s been less than a full two days and he keeps finding his hand twitching toward his phone, the lovr app pulled up before he stops himself. He _misses_ talking to M. He presses against the thought like an old bruise, testing the way it feels. Jon’s always been confident in his ability to be alone, having grown from a solitary child to a still rather solitary adult, despite Tim’s best efforts to rope him into things like, say, office parties. It’s a defense tactic, a fail safe. No matter who or what he might lose, he’ll survive. He’s lived with only his own company before and he can do it again. 

But he _misses_ M. There’s a hole in his day that hasn’t scabbed over, the feeling of climbing the stairs and missing a step every time he realizes what the feeling is. He doesn’t like it. It feels...bad.

But something else feels worse.

“Because he saw me there and his first thought—his _only_ thought—was that I had—had _stalked_ him there to—I don’t know, terrorize him about misplaced boxes,” Jon says, throwing his hands up in exasperation. Which he wouldn’t do—would he? It sounds like something M’s despicable boss might do, certainly. The thought sends a fresh wave of nausea through him. “It never even crossed his mind that I might be the person he was meeting—” despite all the coincidences, painfully obvious now, despite all the near misses and almost-mentioned-details, “—because I’m his tyrannical boss that lives to make his life miserable.”

Sasha grimaces, but doesn’t disagree. 

“Oh, almost forgot.” He laughs, too high and a little unhinged. “That he’s also in love with. So there’s that.”

Sasha’s grimace deepens. “Told you that, did he?” she says. He doesn’t want to know how long she’s known that detail. 

“Yes. He did.” Jon groans and leans back against the door to his office, hiding his face behind his hands that still smell like sugar from Elias’ stupid peace offering. He drops them suddenly. “I’m not homophobic,” he says defensively. 

Sasha squints. “Okay?” 

Better not try to explain that one. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” he confesses. How can he be both Jon and A? They seem like entirely different creatures now, in the blistering light of day, and he’s not sure which he likes better. Jon Sims looks deeply unpleasant now, through the eyes of the outsider, listening to M describe him. He holds his phone tight, resisting the urge to scroll back through their messages, to read them and see himself in them this time. He’d really rather be A.

_Something came up. Sorry._ Not that A’s much better these days anyway.

“Honestly? I don’t know,” Sasha says, and the look on her face says that she truly pities him, at least a little bit. That’s something, he supposes. Better than nothing. “But you’d better figure it out, Jon. Martin’s a good person. You don’t get to break his heart twice.”

*

M:  
 _ok, i realize what happened  
and its ok i get it_

 _Do you?_ Jon almost types it out before he stops himself, thumbs hovering over the screen. He glances warily at his office door, still closed, protecting him from the strange tension in the air outside of it. It’s Tuesday morning and he’s still no closer to knowing what he should do. Sasha keeps shooting him significant looks at every opportunity. He’s not sure what the extent of Tim’s knowledge is, but he’s decided to blame Jon for it either way. He’s taken on the air of a mother hen, lurking around Martin’s desk and puffing up his feathers whenever Jon strays too close, which is unfortunate when he has to take that route to get to the breakroom, the bathroom, or basically anywhere besides his office.

Martin just looks...sad. Downtrodden. Gray. Jon tries not to look, tries to pretend Martin isn’t there at all, but he still catches himself sneaking looks from the corner of his eye, fussing with his bag or lint on his shoulder or anything to mask his intentions. Martin doesn’t notice. He just clicks listlessly on his computer screen, his glasses slid down to the tip of his nose. Jon had been afraid to find him an anxious mess—he knows how much M overthinks things and Martin is _Martin_ , though he’s trying to stop thinking of them as separate people—but somehow this is worse. Guilt sits in his stomach like a physical thing.

Jon worries at his bottom lip with his teeth, watching the _M is typing…_ bubble undulate. 

M:  
_tho i guess maybe you just thought i was ugly which is also fine i guess?  
i mean not really, but haha anyway_

A:  
_You’re not ugly._

Shit. He drops his phone with a clatter, face up on the desk. He can’t be trusted to hold it.

M:  
_oh! so he does speak!  
i thought you were ignoring me_

Goddammit. He picks it back up again.

A:  
_You didn’t say anything._

M:  
_oh shut up  
you did see me there, didnt you?_

A:  
_Fine. Yes.  
But something came up. It has nothing to do with you._

M:  
_listen i told you, i get it  
you saw me with jon, which means you probably saw me freak out  
thats not who i am i swear, i dont normally do that  
like EVER_

A:  
_I’m sure he deserved it, honestly._

M:  
_well...maybe, but that probably wasnt the place for it  
i didnt want that to be your first impression of me  
can we just...start over?_

A:  
_I want to, I do.  
I just need a little time. Some things have come up in my life that I need to evaluate before I subject them on anyone else._

M:  
_what does that mean??_

A:  
_I’m just not sure I’m the person you think I am._

M:  
_dramatic haha_  
right. okay. your decision.  
i’d better go, i think my boss is coming round

“I am not, liar,” Jon mutters, sinking further down his chair, until his spine protests the shape he’s contorted it into. He stares at the screen, trying to summon the right words. He can hardly say ‘yes it’s entirely your boss’s fault’ without the self-loathing flying directly over Martin’s head.

He heaves a sigh and navigates away from the app, pulling up his contacts list instead.

“Hello?” Georgie answers. “Unless you’ve decided that you’re going to give me a straight answer on how the date went, I’m hanging up on you.”

As if she wasn’t already planning on showing up on his doorstep soon to interrogate him anyway. Georgie loves to talk about the importance of boundaries, but even she can only take so many vague texts and non-answers before she snaps.

“Do you remember when the Duke died?” Jon says instead. 

He hears her readjust her grip on the phone. “I cried in my room for a week, yeah. Until you showed up with a tub of ice cream and a comprehensive list of the cats at the local shelter organized by color and lovability.”

“The Admiral scored low in lovability, I maintain that,” he says weakly. “You just liked him because he’s orange.” 

“And yet you love him anyway. What’s that got to do with anything?” 

Jon hesitates. “I think I need to call in that favor.”

Georgie is quiet for a long moment. “...the date went that badly?”

“Not exactly,” he says. “But also—worse.” 

“Let me know when you get home,” she says grimly, like a general staring down the approaching storm of war. “I’ll bring the Admiral.”

*

Martin sighs.

He’s been doing a lot of that lately. He doesn’t _mean_ to, he doesn’t _want_ to be a little storm cloud hanging over the office, but they just kind of...slip out. And doesn’t he deserve a little sigh every now and again? Sounds like a pretty reasonable treat for what’s been unequivocally a shit week, and it’s only _Tuesday_. He almost considers taking the rest of the week off just to take preventative measures against it getting worse, but he thinks he’d be more depressed sitting alone on his couch for days on end. That and Elias never properly explained how paid time off works at the institute and Martin certainly is not about to ask. Especially not Jon.

He sighs again. 

Differently this time. The first sigh had been directed rather pointedly at Sasha and Tim, not that they picked up on it. They’re still staring at each other from their respective desks, locked in one of those silent conversations that they think no one else notices them doing. Every so often Tim will raise an eyebrow or Sasha will frown, the only indications to the unlearned observer that they’re not simply having a staring contest. 

“Can you two keep it down?” Martin says, his tone walking a careful line between joking and tetchy. “Some of us _are_ trying to work.”

Hardly. His cursor blinks back at him on a blank Word document, accusing. 

“Hmm?” Tim hums, breaking eye contact with Sasha to bat his eyes innocently. He’s handsome enough that it almost works, which he knows. That’s what makes him dangerous. “Something the matter, Martin?”

He can’t _actually_ be mad, because they’ve both been almost sickeningly lovely to him, even if Tim has taken to it with a little too much enthusiasm. For some reason he’s taken the grandmotherly approach to comfort, and he keeps trying to push increasingly stale breakroom pastries on him like a little bit of cherry danish is going to cure all his ailments. It sure hasn’t yet. 

“You’re doing that thing again,” Martin says, “where you talk about me without actually saying anything. It’s creepy.” 

“What?” Sasha scoffs. “We don’t do that.”

Martin looks away from his computer screen and raises his eyebrows at her. “Tim wants to do something, but you don’t think he should do it because you think it’ll only make things worse, which there’s a fifty percent chance it just might. But you’re going to break, because you know he’s going to end up doing it anyway, and he knows that you know that, so you’re really just making faces at each other in the meantime.” He pauses. “Am I close?”

There’s a beat of silence. 

“You’re really very astute, Martin,” Sasha says. 

“One of my favorite things about you,” Tim adds. They’ve also been laying on compliments so thick he has to wade through them. 

Martin waves them off, ignoring the warmth on his cheeks. Okay, so maybe the compliments are working a little bit. “Just get on with it.”

Tim and Sasha exchange one last look before Tim stands up, pulling a manilla file folder from under his desk. He crosses the distance between their desks, which is not significant, and places it on Martin’s with a flourish. 

“I swiped this for you,” he says. “I got to thinking that our deal wasn’t quite fair for you. You held up your end of the bargain. It’s about time I held up mine.”

Martin frowns gently down at the file. He wasn’t expecting that. Really, he thought it would be another danish. “Is this...the Trisha Mallory statement?” he says, flipping it open. The statement from a woman whose daughter had gone missing, the one Jon was so stupidly cagey about. He’d nearly forgotten about it. 

“It is,” Tim says. “It still hasn’t been followed up on.” He shrugs, his hands in his pockets. “I thought it might help you to feel better. You know, keep your head busy or something.” 

Martin considers it for a moment, looking down at the neatly typed statement. His first instinct is that he doesn’t want to—but he doesn’t want to do anything, really, because that’s how depression works. But what’s going to change if he doesn’t? Nothing. He’ll spend the rest of the day, the rest of the week, however long it takes to get over A and repair his shattered self-confidence, pecking listlessly at his keyboard.

And what happens if he does? He’s not sure, but Tim might be right. Maybe he does just need something to focus on.

“Thanks, Tim,” Martin says—genuinely, not his ‘I’ll definitely eat this stale danish you’ve foisted on me’ voice. He even musters a smile. “I think that’s a good idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE HELLZONE CONTINUES...but we're getting somewhere. finally. life is hard when you find out you're kind of an asshole and also tim keeps taking all the good pastries. 
> 
> thank you for all the comments and kudos!! y'all went wild on last chapter I'm still working on getting through them. I was going to wait to post this chapter but...got too excited. 
> 
> as always you can also find me on tumblr at [divineatrophy](https://divineatrophy.tumblr.com/) and twitter at [blueskiddoodle!](https://twitter.com/blueskiddoodle) also, in your heart


	8. Chapter 8

What he wouldn’t give to be a cat.

Not that he’s never been compared to one—something about the prickly standoffishness and propensity for avoiding physical touch unless it’s his idea and his idea only—but that doesn't mean there are any perks. He still has to go to work. Still has to interact with human beings. Still has to do every one of the things that he’s learning he’s actually very bad at. 

“You don’t know how lucky you are,” Jon murmurs. The Admiral purrs back at him, his eyes closed into self-satisfied slits. 

“Still laying on the floor, are we?” Georgie’s socked feet thump against the rug as she crosses the room. She peers down at him. “Does that actually help? It must align your spine, at least.”

“I don’t have a hunch,” he argues weakly, but his heart isn’t in it. She’s always saying he needs one of those ergonomic desk chairs, but he knows that she only wants to hear about him trying to have that conversation with Elias. The image of Elias Bouchard sitting on a yoga ball makes him shudder. It should be funny, but it somehow manages to only be unsettling. 

Maybe he _does_ have a hunch. That would be just his luck. Not that it matters. He’s already laying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling in abject misery, a cat happily loafing on his chest where Georgie deposited him. If this isn’t rock bottom, he doesn’t want to know what is. 

Georgie sets a mug of tea next to his head, as if trying to tempt him into the sitting position. It doesn’t work. Tea just makes him think of Martin, which makes him think of M, which makes him think of the hellscape his life has become and the deep, dark well of guilt that lurks somewhere in the vicinity of his heart, currently held down by the weight of a fluffy orange cat. 

“Do you want to help me put sunglasses on the Admiral and take pictures for Instagram?” Georgie proposes gently when the tea goes ignored. 

He hums noncommittally. 

Georgie sighs. “Okay,” she says. She conscientiously moves the mug to the safety of the coffee table before she lies down on the rug next to him, squirming in an attempt to get some approximation of comfort. Either she finds it or she gives up. Finally she sighs through her nose and folds her hands over her middle. She turns her head toward him, her cheek pillowed on her hair. “Okay,” she says again. “So what are you going to do?”

Jon presses his lips together. He didn’t want tea, but he’s not sure he wanted this either. Frankly, he doesn’t know what he wants, except for the Admiral to stop trying to knead his chest. He gently pulls the Admiral’s claws out of his skin. “You didn’t bring a chart,” he says, buying himself time.

“You do charts. I do...whatever this is.” She reaches over to swat his arm. “Come on. You’re the one who asked me to come over. I know you’re not just using me for my cat.”

Jon sighs and tilts his head back, analyzing the faults in his ceiling. “I can’t just tell him,” he says after a long moment. 

“Why not?” Georgie prompts. 

“Because one of two things is going to happen,” Jon says. The words come a little easier the more he says them, colored with the edge of annoyance his voice always gets when he’s talking about something he doesn’t like. He’s heard it played back at the end of statements, when the tape hiccups and he wants to make sure the recording is sound. It’s perhaps not his most attractive quality. “He’ll think I’ve been...catfishing him or _whatever_ to catch him slacking off work and he’ll _hate_ me, even more than he most likely does right now. I’ll look like some sort of predator, probably get written up by HR, and Martin will never speak to me again. Or.”

He hesitates, his lips pressed tight as if to swallow the words. Is something wrong with him, that the predator scenario sounds easier than the alternative? Probably. “Or,” he tries again. “He likes A so much that he forgives Jon.”

He’s still staring obstinately at the ceiling, but he can feel Georgie shift onto her side, her head resting on her arm like this is a sleepover. “You don’t want him to forgive you?”

“I mean I _do_ , but—but not like _that._ ” Jon sighs and turns his head to look at her. His hair tickles his nose and his glasses go crooked where they press into the rug, which doesn’t pair well with the gravity in his voice. “Jon hasn’t done anything worth forgiveness.” 

Georgie squints thoughtfully. “We’re getting into some strange identity stuff, but I think I’m following,” she says.

It _is_ more than a little confusing, but he doesn’t know how else to describe it. “I was only nice to him as A because I didn’t know that M was Martin,” he confesses. It sounds bad, probably because it is, but that didn’t make it any less true. “I don’t think I get to collect...p-points for that.” He’s getting flustered now, his ears warm. He buries his hands in the Admiral’s fur and frowns at him. “I still said all the terrible things I said to Martin. I still _meant_ them. I’m still...you know.” His voice grows quiet. “Terrible.” If it’s possible for his shoulders to sag while lying horizontally, they do. 

Georgie sighs and reaches out to scratch the Admiral’s forehead. His eyes squint and his purr rumbles through Jon’s chest. “You’re not terrible,” she says.

Jon snorts. “A little bit, though,” he counters. 

“Oh, shut up,” she scoffs. “You’re an idiot and I’m not happy that my cat likes you more than he does me, but you’re not terrible.” She pushes herself up so that she’s sitting cross-legged on the rug. Reluctantly, Jon follows her lead. The Admiral meows plaintively in protest and jumps off of him, his fluffy tail flicking unhappily. “Do you still like M, even knowing that he’s Martin?”

“I suppose it would be easier if I didn’t.” Georgie raises her eyebrows and Jon rolls his eyes. “Yes. I do.”

“Okay,” she says again. “So what are you going to do about it?”

Jon sighs. “Make it right,” he says reluctantly. “Somehow.”

*

It’s actually a little helpful, knowing that Martin and M are one in the same. It gives him a little more information to work with. It’s all on the chart.

But Martin being Martin, the starting point is obvious. Tea. 

Jon leaves early so he has time to swing by the cafe on the way to work. The same cafe where they had their date-turned-confrontation and he _knows_ that he’s only imagining the strange looks the staff give him, but he still doesn’t waste any time in beating a hasty retreat. He fusses with the cardboard cup sleeve as he walks the rest of the way to the institute, making sure the pigeon on the logo is facing the right way. It might be a bit cheeky for an apology tea, but, well, he’s hoping for the best.

Hoping for the best is a concerningly large part of his plan right now.

Still, he’s feeling unreasonably optimistic as he steps into the archives that morning, a cup in each hand. This is going to work, he thinks. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but good things take time. He’s patient, he can—

He stops in front of Martin’s empty desk, his optimism deflating like a popped balloon. “Where’s Martin?” he asks, trying not to sound annoyed. He had a _plan_. The tea is going to get cold…

Tim materializes in front of him, his arms folded over his chest. “Why do you want to know?” he demands. 

That’s a high level of aggression for this early in the morning. “I brought him...tea,” Jon says lamely, his genius plan turning to ash in his hands. It had gone much better when he was running it over in his head for the tenth time this morning. Now that he’s said it out loud, standing there holding the cup, it feels...extremely embarrassing. 

“Tea?” Tim says it like it’s a dirty word. He takes the cup and sniffs it. “Is it poisoned?” 

“It’s not poisoned,” Jon huffs, snatching it back again, careful not to spill any on the oh-so-important new carpeting. “You might want to talk to someone about your paranoia,” he drawls, letting the condescension drip. After a morning of hyping himself up to be nice, it actually feels a little relaxing. 

If Tim’s eyes narrowed any more they’d be closed. “Jonathan,” he says.

Okay? “Timothy,” Jon counters, unsure what he’s supposed to say to that. 

Sasha clears her throat and then both turn their heads in sync. “Martin is running late,” she offers lightly. “But I’m sure if you leave it on his desk he’ll find it just fine.” 

“Right. Thank you.” Jon turns and considers Martin’s desk for a long, awkward moment, made no less awkward by the fact that Tim is still practically standing on top of him. Finally he gingerly sets the cup down on a bare piece of desk between stacks of papers and file folders. “I’ll just—leave that there. When he gets in if you could—tell him that I’m—well. Never mind.” He clears his throat and awkwardly sidesteps around Tim. He hunches his shoulders and wraps his hands around his own cup, feeling their eyes on his back as he retreats to his office. 

“Tell him that you’re sorry?” Tim suggests, waiting until Jon’s hand is on the doorknob to call it across the archives. Not that it’s very far, but his voice still fills the office.

Jon winces and twitches his head, almost looking back. “Yes,” he says, his optimism good and dead, along with any hope that Tim might not know the extent of the situation. “Tell him that.”

*

“What’s this?” Martin picks up the cardboard cup waiting on his desk, still lukewarm against his hand. He answers himself, rolling his eyes. “I told you I don’t need to be babied, Tim,” he says. “I’m fine. Really.”

Tim and Sasha exchange a quick Tim-and-Sasha look over their computers. “It wasn’t me,” he says.

“Jon brought it,” Sasha adds. Another furtive look. 

“Jon?” He repeats. “Is it poisoned?” 

Tim snorts into his coffee and Sasha rolls her eyes and it’s really too early for this much unspoken subtext in one conversation. It’s bad enough he was late to work and he’s been sleeping like shit and he keeps having to talk himself out of texting A, sometimes getting halfway through the message before he deletes it all and closes the app. Sometimes it’s a joke, as if everything is totally normal, other times it’s demanding an explanation—a real one—because he deserves one, goddammit. At least once, at his lowest point, it was a little less like demanding and a lot more like begging. He’d shut his phone off after that, to remove the temptation, which is exactly why he was late to work. 

“I think it might be a peace offering,” Tim says carefully, like he might almost believe it. Which is certainly interesting, considering that Tim seemed to have independently decided that Jon was personally responsible for everything wrong in Martin’s life. God, he wishes that were true. It’d make his problems a little simpler at least.

“You think?” He takes a tentative sip. It’s good, if a little cool, but not Jon’s fault, he supposes. And his usual order, on the rare occasion he treats himself, which is surprising. Sasha must have taken pity on Jon and told him. There’s no way he figured it out on his own. Or maybe he asked. That was considerate, wasn’t it? A bit surprising, too. 

And then his eyes drop to the cardboard sleeve and the spark of warmth in his chest immediately sours. “You can’t be serious,” he mutters. The cafe he can never go back to without wondering if he’s on some sort of blacklist for people who have meltdowns in the middle of cafes. Is that supposed to be a joke? He sets it down a little harder than necessary. Suddenly, he’s not very thirsty. 

He shoulders his bag again, grabbing the Mallory statement file instead of the tea. 

“Everything all right, Martin?” Sasha probes tentatively. 

“It’s nothing,” he sighs. “Just going to go do some breaking and entering, I think.” That’ll make him feel better. At least it’s doing _something_ , even if the Mallory statement has been sitting so long that the woman’s daughter is probably gone for good. Which should probably bother him at least a little bit, but that’s pretty par for the course with institute work. 

“It’s _is_ weird how much we say that,” Tim says, turning to Sasha as Martin turns back the way he came, ‘’isn’t it?”

*

Jon spends the next several hours inventing reasons to leave his office and pass by Martin’s desk.

“Is he still not in?” Jon asks when he personally delivers a statement to follow up on to Sasha’s desk. He notes with no small amount of disappointment that the tea is still sitting on Martin’s desk, surely cold by now. 

Sasha actually leans sideways to trade a look with Tim. At this point, Jon isn’t sure if they even notice themselves doing it. “He went out to work on some follow-up,” she says.

“Hm,” he says eloquently. He turns back to his office.

*

“Does he usually take this long?” Jon asks when he runs into Tim by the copier, a file folder of superfluous copies held securely in one hand.

Tim shrugs, his eyes darting, but Sasha is nowhere to be seen. “Guess it depends,” he says awkwardly. “Sometimes.”

“Hm.”

*

“I haven’t seen him,” Sasha says without looking up as Jon passes too close to her desk.

Jon pauses. “I was just going to the bathroom,” he says, just a touch defensive. 

Sasha scribbles something on a notepad. “Sure.”

“Really.”

“Okay.” When he doesn't move, Sasha looks up over the top of her reading glasses. “Still haven’t seen him, Jon.”

“Right. Okay,” he says, startling back into action. “Hm.”

*

Something about seeing Elias in the breakroom feels wrong.

Jon isn’t sure if it’s the implication that Elias takes breaks or just something about his eyes, which hold the eerie quality of a painting that watches you no matter where you stand. Not that Jon typically spends much time there either, much preferring the sanctity of his office, but extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. Namely the fact that he was so consumed with his morning tea plan that he hadn’t thought about lunch, and he doesn’t want to leave long enough to grab something on the off chance that that’s the moment Martin chooses to return. So instead lunch time finds him scrounging in the breakroom like the last known survivor of some terrible calamity, living off over-steeped tea and stale oyster crackers that he found in the back of a cabinet. 

Not exactly how you might want your boss to find you, particularly the part where he’s shaking the bag of oyster crackers into his mouth to get the last traces of salt at the bottom, but Elias doesn’t comment. He just washes his hands methodically at the sink, humming softly to himself. 

Jon almost thinks he can make a clean getaway. Almost. 

“Peter is being dreadfully annoying lately,” Elias sighs just as Jon is about to make a break for the door. He’s still focused on washing his hands, but the tilt of his head makes it clear that there’s no escape. Not that easily. “We have something of a bet going, you see, and he thinks he’s winning.” 

“Oh,” Jon says, because he has to say _something._ He fidgets awkwardly with the empty cracker bag, willing his stomach not to growl. Reminding it that food exists has only made it less satisfied. “Er, is he? Winning, I mean?”

Elias smiles slyly over his shoulder, like they’re in on the same secret, only Jon can’t begin to imagine what it might be. “I suppose it depends on your perspective,” he says. “But it’s for the best. I find that people are much easier to predict when they think they’ve got it all figured out. They get...sloppy. Oh, that’s a terrible word. Complacent? That’s the one.” 

Jon stares, his mouth hanging open just enough to invite flies. “Do you two do that...a lot? The bets and the...manipulation?”

“Hm? Oh, constantly.” Elias chuckles to himself. 

“Oh God,” Jon whispers. Is that what he’s setting himself up for someday? Mind games and a tactical approach to a relationship? At what point does leaving strategically placed cups of tea and lying in wait turn into mysterious bets and using words like _complacent_? He’s not even sure if Elias and Peter Lukas are married—presently or ever, frankly, the evidence is confusing—but he knows that that kind of existence sounds nothing short of miserable. Nausea crawls up his throat in a way that has very little to do with the dusty oyster crackers.

“What was that?” Elias says cheerfully.

Jon jumps, coming back to himself with a start. “Nothing! Nothing. I’d just—better go. Get back to work.” He pats distractedly at the empty bag for a moment before he gives up and just leaves it there next to his untouched mug of tea.

“Good luck,” Elias calls after him.

*

Jon bursts into the archives like a man on fire.

“Martin, I—oh, Jesus _Christ_ is he _still_ not back?”

Tim and Sasha stare back at him like deer in the headlights, their mouths still open in whatever conversation he dramatically cut off. Whatever, it’s not important. What’s important is that Martin’s desk is still untouched, in the same perfect disarray that it was this morning, and Jon _needs to talk to him._

To be honest, to beg forgiveness, _whatever_. He hasn’t quite figured out the words yet, but he’s trusting that they’ll come in the moment. If he ever gets to _have_ the moment. 

He tries to ignore the quiet, nagging voice in the back of his head that says it might be too late. 

“Haven’t heard from him,” Tim says, once the shocks worn off. He frowns. “Starting to get a bit worried, actually. You don’t think the police got him?” He turns to Sasha.

She shakes her head. “No, he would have called. I’ve texted him but I haven’t heard anything back.”

Jon huffs, more than a little out of breath. “Where is he? I’ll go find him. _Stop doing that._ ”

Tim and Sasha break their meaningful staring contest hurriedly. “He’s working on the Mallory disappearance follow-up,” Tim says. He sets his jaw defiantly. “And don’t give me shit about giving it to him, because if you’re not going to tell him the truth he at least deserves a _hint_ —”

“I’m going to tell him,” Jon says in a rush. It feels like yanking the air directly from his lungs, dizzying and exciting and terrifying all at once. He’s said the words. He’s spoken them into existence. Now all that’s left is the hard part. “I’m going to tell him the truth. All of it.”

“Oh,” Tim says, his eyes wide.

“Good for you, Jon,” Sasha says, her eyebrows practically disappearing into her hairline. They exchange another look.

He laughs weakly, feeling a little bit dazed. “Well,” he says. “Wish me luck.”

“Don’t you need the address?” Tim calls after him, but Jon’s already halfway to the elevator, his shoulders squared like he’s going off to war. 

He already knows where it is.

*

He’s always had a good memory, especially for things that he’s read, and that goes double for things he’s read aloud. That’s almost certainly why Barb Mallory’s address stuck in his head, he thinks, as he navigates the shuffle of London’s commuters.

It was a bit of a sad statement, but hardly remarkable among the rest of the archives. Not particularly tragic or disgusting or even wildly fantastical enough to earn a scoff from him. Barb Mallory was a lonely woman with no luck in love and a trail of exes that ranged from borderline abusive to really just kind of a dick. Her mother knew that she’d recently gotten into a new dating app—the fated _lovr_ —and—

Well. He doesn’t remember the rest, exactly. Except that obviously she disappeared, prompting her mother to contact the institute and _hopefully_ also the police. Unfortunately all signs and good sense point to Barb Mallory being murdered by the latest and last in her string of ill-fated lovers. Not that he thinks Martin is going to be murdered. Or that he’s his lover, which is a horrible word and not even really accurate—

Focus. _Focus._

Barb Mallory’s flat is a stark affair. The hall is white tile on white plaster on yellowed fluorescent lighting, giving it the effect of being 3 AM someplace seedy even though outside it’s the middle of the day. Her mother is keeping up rent, he remembers that now. Just on the off-chance that she might come back. She lived on the third floor in number 10, immediately conspicuous because the door is just slightly ajar.

Dread crawls up his spine.

Jon presses his fingertips against the door but doesn’t push it open yet. “Martin?” He calls tentatively. His phone is clutched in his other hand. He’d considered texting him the entire journey, both as A or as Jon, but he hadn’t been convinced that Martin would actually answer either of them. Now he wishes he had. The door creaks as he gently nudges it open.

It’s a little flat, only slightly nicer than the hall outside, and only by sheer effort on Barb’s part. A vase of wilted sunflowers sits on the windowsill, a bright pink mug on the coffee table. Otherwise it’s very white, very gray. Very cold. Jon shivers. 

“Martin?” He tries again, stepping tentatively around the coffee table. Something catches his eye on the floor behind the sway-backed old couch. Another rare flash of color. Turquoise. 

His heart drops and then immediately shoots back up into his throat. Turquoise like Martin’s phone case, lying crooked on the tile. Jon’s breath scrapes against his ears as he stoops and picks it up. 

The screen is no more cracked than it was before but it lights up with the movement and Jon jumps as his phone buzzes in response. His reception is awful in this building, but there’s a lovr notification now, probably forced through by proximity if nothing else. He’s not sure if that’s even how that works, but he opens the notification anyway.

M:  
_Hey, I think we need to talk._

Proper capitalization. Somehow that’s what strikes him. M never capitalizes properly if he can help it—some pointless aesthetic thing that he finds charming despite himself—unless he’s serious. _It’s too late,_ the nagging voice is louder now, rattling around the inside of his head like an echo, louder with every ricochet. _You waited too long. It’s too late, it’s too late, it’s too late._

He doesn’t notice the fog curling around his ankles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we did it. believe it or not this IS the end of the hellzone. it may not look like it! probably because it's a cliffhanger! but really it's a doorway we're stepping through and into greener pastures I PROMISE. 
> 
> thank you for the comments and kudos, I love every one of them!! at this point I think we've probably got about 2 more chapters + bonus epilogue. gonna tempt fate here and say that i'm hoping to stick to this weekly schedule because I'm really excited to get to these next parts!!
> 
> as always you can also find me on tumblr at [divineatrophy](https://divineatrophy.tumblr.com/) and to a lesser extent twitter at [blueskiddoodle.](https://twitter.com/blueskiddoodle) ALSO gonna take a moment to plug that I did [draw the pastry scene from chapter 3](https://divineatrophy.tumblr.com/post/620677360088481792/technically-speaking-stranger-stranger-is-not-a) because sometimes you have to be the fanart you want to see in the world.


	9. Chapter 9

It’s cold.

The thought keeps circling back to him, numbing Martin’s mind around the edges like frost. Not winter-cold, but chilly, just enough to be uncomfortable. Just enough to bother him, like a gnat in his ear. It’s distracting. How is he supposed to get anywhere when he can’t focus? The fog certainly doesn’t help.

He stops and considers the fog like it’s for the first time. It is, a bit. He knows that he keeps forgetting it’s there, but he doesn’t remember the forgetting until he remembers the fog. Strange, isn’t it? Fog on the inside of the house. Someone’s house. Someone should tell them about it. And hire a decorator. It’s hard to find where he’s going when all the walls look the same. 

God, it’s cold. 

“Martin.”

Oh, like he needs _more_ distractions. What a nuisance. He scowls at the fog. Where is all that coming from? Someone should do something about that. And decorate. All the white walls are so plain and boring. He’d know something about that. Plain, boring Martin.

“Martin.”

Wait. Who?

This cold really is ridiculous. 

_“Martin.”_

Someone grabs him by the arms and the color of them is so bright and abrupt that it hurts his eyes. Martin squints and blinks. “Wh—Jon?” He blinks again, harder this time. The world is still swathed with fog—white and gray and _cold_ —but Jon’s hands are warm against his arms and God—is that yellow plaid? Has Jon always dressed so brightly? “ _Jon?_ ”

Jon drops his hands and the cold rushes into the space he left behind, but not as sharp as it was before. It’s easier to focus now, with Jon standing there in front of him, a spot of color against the emptiness. “Sorry,” he says with a self-deprecating little laugh. “Guess I’m not exactly who you were hoping to see right now.”

Martin exhales, gusty with relief he's only noticing now that the fog has receded just a bit. “I’m happy to see just about anyone right now, to be honest,” he says like a confession. He can be mad later, though he’s having trouble remembering why. There are still a few cobwebs slowing down his brain. “Where—where _are_ we?”

Jon frowns. “I don’t know,” he murmurs, looking around like he might find answers in the white, fog-choked halls. “It reminds me of—”

“A statement,” Martin fills in. “That’s what I was afraid you’d say.” It’s coming back to him in pieces—the file folder, Barb Mallory’s apartment, the weight of his phone in his hand. He doesn't know where it’s gone now, but it doesn’t much matter. He sincerely doubts he’d get service wherever _this_ is. 

“Yes,” Jon says grimly. He looks back, his eyes meeting Martin’s, and hesitates. 

“What?” Martin says when the silence goes on too long, fidgeting nervously with his sleeves. It’s unfair that he can look so good right now, even with his collar crooked and his hair mussed, or maybe because of it. Martin’s heart does a furious little flip and the fog tickles his ankles. 

“Nothing,” Jon says quickly, looking away again. He clears his throat. “We should try to find a way out of here, shouldn’t we?”

“...Right.” He supposes a little honesty was too much to ask for. If you can’t be honest in a spooky fog-hell then when _can_ you? He sighs and looks back toward the fog, snaking through the endless maze of white halls and open doorways. God, they really need a decorator… 

“Martin.”

He jumps. “Sorry,” he says, blinking hard. “Just. Hard to stay focused here. Something about the fog.”

Jon clears his throat again. “You should probably—we should probably—” He holds out his hand. Martin stares at it quizzically. “So we won’t get separated.” He adjusts his glasses with his other hand.

Oh. _Oh._

“You want me to...hold your hand?” Martin says slowly. “Just to be sure.”

“You don’t _have_ to,” Jon blusters. “If you don’t want to—”

“I didn’t say that—I mean—”

“Unless you want to get lost, then by all means go ahead—”

Martin takes his hand and Jon’s mouth shuts so fast his teeth click. 

It’s actually, literally pathetic how often he’s imagined doing this. Well, the setting was a little different, less fog and imminent danger, but the Jon part is the same. His grip is stronger than Martin imagined, his fingers not as boney. They stare down at their joined hands for a heartbeat before Jon wiggles his hand and they adjust their grip into something more comfortable. For a brief, delirious moment, Martin thinks Jon is actually about to lace their fingers together. 

“Right,” Jon says. “Good.” He doesn’t move.

“On we go, then?” Martin prompts. 

“On we go,” Jon agrees. 

On to _where_ exactly he has no idea, and it doesn’t become any clearer the deeper they move into...wherever it is they are currently. Martin doesn’t exactly remember how he got there—he remembers the flat and his phone and the hollow pit in his stomach and then there’s only fog and cold and white walls. He blinks hard, giving himself a little shake. It’s easier to focus with Jon’s hand in his. Or at least it’s easier to focus _on_ Jon’s hand in his. If someone had told him this would be his afternoon a week ago, he would have laughed. 

Well. And been a little concerned, namely about the endless maze of white corridors. But then he would have laughed. 

Their footsteps don’t make a sound as they walk, as if the fog is cushioning their feet. All Martin can hear is the ugly scrape of his own breath against the silence and Jon’s discontented humming every time they find an open door that leads to another empty, white room. 

“I don’t think this is working,” Martin says after the fifth door.

“What else would you suggest we do?” Jon asks impatiently. “Dig a hole—”

“Shh.” Martin puts up a hand, too distracted to be mortified that he actually did that. “Do you hear that?” A flaw in the silence, almost imperceptible. It hurts to listen for it, the silence pressing against his ears as thick and dangerous as the fog. “It sounds like...like someone’s crying.”

“Martin—”

Martin starts forward, almost forgetting about their joined hands until he feels the tug of Jon following behind him. He follows the sound like breadcrumbs, until he finds—

Another open door. He stops outside of it, suddenly nervous. His breath shivers against his lips. “I think someone’s inside,” Martin says, his voice hushed. His voice sounds too loud, too abrasive now that someone besides Jon and the fog might be there to hear it. 

Jon’s hand tightens around his in a way that must be reflexive. “Who?” 

Martin wets his lips. “I think...I think it might be the missing woman. Barb Mallory.”

The room is square and white, lit from some unidentifiable source, the same as every other they’ve seen. The only difference is the figure in the corner, its shoulders trembling as she cries softly.

She looks young, curled up in on herself, her knees drawn up to her chin. Auburn hair is cut in a bob, just severe enough to be alternative, now hanging messily in her eyes. She holds her legs like it’s the only thing keeping her from falling apart, sniffling softly into the material of her leggings. Something about her is faded and creased, like an old photograph forgotten in the sun. Like she’s forgotten what colors she’s supposed to be. She doesn’t look up when Martin steps in the room. 

"Be careful," Jon murmurs.

“Hello there,” Martin says gently. His hand trails away from Jon’s as he moves closer, slowly sinking into a crouch. “You’re Barb, aren’t you?” 

She doesn’t look up. Her whole body trembles with hiccuping sobs. 

“We’ve been looking for you,” he says. He holds out his hand. “Come on then. It’s alright. I won’t hurt you.”

Nothing. 

“Barb.” His voice strains. “Please, let us help you.” 

Jon’s fingertips brush his shoulder. “Martin,” he says, uncharacteristically gentle. “I don’t think she can hear you.”

“She has to,” he snaps, sharper than he meant to. “We can’t—we can’t just leave her here.” Not in this awful place with the chill and the fog and the awful decorating, someone ought to do something about that— 

“ _Martin!_ ” Jon balls his fist in Martin’s shirt and yanks, insistent enough that Martin has no choice but to let Jon pull him to his feet. “We have to go. Now!” There’s real fear in his voice, sharp as a knife. 

Martin isn’t real enough to fully control the shuffle of his feet—he’s floating, he’s fog, he’s somewhere just slightly outside himself, watching Jon bully him back out into the hallway. He doesn't want to leave but he doesn't want to stay either. He doesn't want anything at all, but he still _wants_ , a directionless ache that sits in his chest. The fog is thick around their legs, coiling like a physical thing. When he breathes he can feel it in his lungs. 

“Martin.” This time when Jon says his name, Martin startles back to himself. His face bracketed by Jon’s hands, warm fingers pressed against his neck so he can feel his own sluggish pulse against them. Jon is very close, his eyes very wide. “Are you here?”

“Yes, sorry, I’m—” Martin screws up his eyes, trying to sort his scattered thoughts. He holds onto Jon’s wrists but doesn’t move his hands, just lets them hang there, focusing on the warmth and the weight and the sharp point of reality they give him. “I’m here. It’s just—something about this place.” Something hollow and empty and a little bit lovely. Like pressing your thumb against a bruise until you can almost taste the ache. It's like hesitation, the place between making a decision. Everything yet nothing at all. How is that? “I’m here,” he says again, more insistently. He’s not sure who he’s trying to convince. 

Jon is looking at him that way again—intense in a way that’s very _Jon_ , but has never been directed at him. If it had, he probably would have died on the spot, but things are different now. Everything is different here. Different and far away.

Except for Jon. “I need to tell you something,” he says, his voice hoarse. 

“Erm. Is now really the best time?” The scrutiny makes Martin squirm, suddenly very present and very aware that Jon is still holding his face like he means to—well. Martin drops his hands and Jon follows suit, but he doesn’t step back. He’s still too close, turning the space between them into its own claustrophobic little world outside of the white halls and the fog.

“Yes,” Jon says insistently, a feverish look in his eye. And yet he still hesitates, worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth. “Martin, I—I haven’t been very fair to you.”

Well—no, obviously, but there seems to be more to it than that, from the determined set of Jon’s jaw. There’s a low whine in Martin’s ears, as soft and hard to pin down on as the fog. 

“I’ve been an ass, actually,” Jon says, and whatever he’d had pent up inside of him seems to leave him in a rush. “I was new to the job and unqualified and—I was scared. So I took it out on you, because maybe if I could do better than one person, just one, I could pretend that I knew what I was doing. And it had to be you, Martin. Not just because Sasha wouldn’t have bought it or because Tim would have fought back. But because you’re kind. I don’t know what to do with kindness. It’s not—” he flounders, rubbing the back of his neck, “—it’s not something I have much experience with.” 

Martin stares, his mouth hanging open just enough that he should probably start worrying about flies. It’s probably the most Jon has ever said to him directly at once, at least that wasn’t a scathing dressing down of his ability to write a report. “Is that…” He blinks. “Sorry, was that an apology?” He knows they’re trapped in some terrible fog-dimension and it’s been a bit of a weird day, but some things are hard to believe. The soft, atmospheric whine is building now, digging into his ears. He shakes his head, trying to focus. 

“No. That was the explanation. This is the apology,” Jon says, and suddenly his eyes are clear and his voice is steady. He’s serious, but not in the normal way. Not in the way where he’s scoffing at whatever statement has landed on his desk, but like this is important. “I’m sorry, Martin. For the things I said to you, the way I treated you. It wasn’t appropriate, or warranted, or...it wasn’t right. And I’m sorry. I’d—I’d like to do better,” he stammers, losing his nerve again. He looks away, at his feet. “If you’ll let me.” 

Martin hardly even notices the whine now, higher and higher, staticy around the edges. It’s a part of the world around them as much as the fog and the white walls and the awful decor and Jon—Jon who is so colorful it hurts his eyes. Who stands out from the landscape like he was cut out from a magazine and pasted there. Martin opens his mouth to speak, but the staticy hum lives in his chest now, letting him feel every hollow, empty piece of him.

“Don’t do that,” Martin says, almost like a sigh.

Jon looks as though he’s been slapped. He actually cringes. “W-what?” 

Martin shakes his head and he really does sigh this time. “Don’t apologize just because you think we’re going to die here,” he says. He watches idly as the fog eddies and swirls around his ankles, like a friendly dog looking for attention. “You think you mean it, and maybe you do, but it doesn't matter, does it? At least outside of here. When it comes down to it, you’ll leave. Everybody leaves in their own way.”

“That’s not true,” Jon says, barely louder than a whisper.

Martin is hardly listening. He holds out his fingers and the fog snakes through them, almost playful. It’s cool and damp against his skin. “Mum left a long time ago. She’s still there, sure, I mean you can see her, but not really. Sasha is looking for a new job—you know that right? Tim won’t be long after she leaves, he could do better. Who have I got after that? Bit of a sad list.” He closes his hand experimentally and the fog escapes only to coalesce again, fluttering across his knuckles. “Thought I might have met someone but...well. It doesn’t matter.” He shrugs. “He left too.”

“I didn’t leave.”

Martin looks up and frowns. “What did you say?” Jon is staring at him, his jaw set and his expression resolute. At least what Martin can see of it. The fog is thicker now, and angry. It roils like a storm-tossed sea as the electric whine crescendos in Martin’s ears. 

“I said that I didn’t leave!” Jon must hear it too, because he’s shouting now. Or maybe he’s just trying to be heard over the swirl of the fog, buffeting them from all sides with a sound like beating wings. “It was me, Martin! It was always me! I can explain everything, but—but I didn’t leave.”

He reaches out and grabs Martin by the arms, even as the furious fog writhes between them, suddenly icy against his skin. Only Jon’s hands are warm, wrapped so tight around his forearms that it hurts. 

“You can’t just say that,” Martin gasps and the fog almost eats the words, almost steals the breath from his lungs, almost crawls inside him and consumes him from the inside out. _Almost._ “ _Jon—_ ”

“I won’t leave,” Jon says fiercely, tightening his grip even as the wind snaps at his shirt collar and whips his hair into his eyes. “I’m right here.”

Right here, in the cold and the white and the fog, fog, fog. Warmth and color and _Jon._ Right here, holding him in place when every piece of him wants to run away from itself. Martin closes his eyes against the sting of the wind and holds him back, their arms locked together, their foreheads touching as the fog drags icy fingers through their hair. The storm rages.

And then the world goes quiet.

“I’m right here,” Jon breathes, and then they feel the rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been a hell of a time since I saw you last, but the ol brain finally managed to kick this chapter out. this one is the high drama, next one is the sweet payoff I promise!! shout out to ep 170 for the well-timed lonely inspo. 
> 
> thank you as always for the comments and kudos! they mean a lot!! 
> 
> you can also find me on tumblr at [divineatrophy](https://divineatrophy.tumblr.com/), twitter at [blueskiddoodle](https://twitter.com/blueskiddoodle), or at your local target.


	10. Chapter 10

The rain is torrential. 

But at least it’s real in a way that place, that terrible _place_ , never could be. Jon doesn't know how they got here, standing in a dark alleyway, well past nightfall, still gripping one another like two men drowning, but he’s not about to complain. It’s _real._ The grimy concrete beneath his feet and the murmur of traffic from the nearby street and Martin, his skin still cold underneath Jon’s hands, blinking owlishly back at him in the rain.

“Are you okay?” Jon says, exhaling in a rush. Martin’s eyes don’t have the distractible quality they did before, and even in the half-light his skin doesn’t have the same gray cast, like he’s been put through the wash one too many times and lost his color. He looks…

 _Real._ Real, real, real. His heart trips over itself. 

“All things considered,” Martin says with a breathless laugh. “We should probably, um—”

“Right.” They’re well past any hope of staying dry, they were soaked to the bone within the first sixty seconds. All that’s left to do about it now is to try to avoid catching a cold.

And—well, Jon doesn't know what happens next, but this isn’t the place to talk about it, not the least of which is because they have to practically shout over the drum of the rain. Once he would have been paralyzed by the uncertainty of it all, but suddenly it feels less like uncertainty and more like potential. After the endless halls of the fog-choked loneliness, even the dingiest alley in London leads somewhere brighter. Jon grabs Martin’s hand without letting himself think twice about it and pulls him out of the alley. 

The Institute is the only place to go, really. Jon hates thinking of it as _neutral ground_ , but that’s what it is. Somehow negotiating who lives closest to Dark Backalley, London in the back of a cab feels a bit off tonally and they can hardly split the fare, part ways with a wave, and catch up in the morning over tea and Tim’s stale office pastries. There’s too much to say, even if Jon is still working out just how to say it. 

It’s late enough that it’s nearly early, but Jon has a key. They run up the steps to the Institute and huddle under the stone awning as Jon fumbles with the lock. Only the emergency lights are on in the lobby, casting it in an eerie dusk not unlike the rain-slick street outside. 

The archives welcome them like an old friend, looking disarmingly mundane as Jon flicks on the lights, as if they’re not dripping all over the new carpet at God-knows-when in the morning. He doesn’t have to look in the mirror to know he looks like a drowned rat. It might bother him more if Martin wasn’t just as bad, his hair spiking strangely in the back and his glasses smeared where he tried to wipe them off on his similarly soaked shirt. 

“I’ll be honest,” Martin says, holding the lenses up to the light and squinting as he tries to see if he’s made the streaks better or worse this time, “I don’t know if you’re the one with the bad luck, or me.”

Jon snorts softly, but turns away to hide his smile. His flash of poeticism from the alley has flagged a bit, leaving room for anxiety to creep in, but his hair makes it hard to pretend that he's not charmed. It makes Martin look like a beleaguered duck. “It’s me, I assure you,” he says, and even he can hear the smile in his voice. Damn. He resists the urge to bury his face in his hands. “Wait here.” 

Jon disappears into his office and returns a moment later with a cardboard box, enthusiastically labeled _Break In Case of Grubs_. “Georgie sent me with some What the Ghost merchandise after the...vomit incident,” he says sheepishly. “Some sort of strange guerilla marketing strategy.” He sets it on Tim's desk and gestures vaguely toward it. “I’m sure there’s something in there that will fit.”

They both stare at it for a moment too long, Jon nodding like it’s going to get up and do something while Martin fidgets with the hem of his shirt. 

Jon clears his throat. “I should—” He gestures toward his office. “I’ll just go dry off a bit—”

“Right!” Martin says. “Right. Me as well.”

“Right.”

“And make tea—”

“Of course.”

“Right.”

Oh for God’s sake. 

Jon wastes several precious but necessary seconds with his back pressed against his office door, looking up at the ceiling and beseeching some higher power to end his life. The poeticism from the alley is gone entirely now, and even the anxiety has been replaced by sheer terror. What’s he supposed to do _now_? It’s one thing to dramatically confess when it looked like Martin was about to turn to fog himself and drift away. It’s quite another to have to look him in the eye and explain exactly what the dramatic confession means. He presses his fingertips against the bridge of his nose, pushing his glasses awkwardly against his face. Georgie is definitely sleeping, not that he knows where his phone went anyway. He’s on his own for this one.

What would Georgie say? She’d ask if he meant it. 

_I didn’t leave. I won’t leave._

She’d ask if he’d say it again.

_I’m right here._

Jon takes a steadying breath.

Right. Okay. Fine. 

Martin raises his eyebrows when Jon finally emerges from his office. Martin’s changed into a black What the Ghost branded t-shirt paired with black What the Ghost branded sweatpants in a combination that makes him look like an uncreative, if passionate about podcasts, goth. He’s leaning against his desk, one mug in his hand and another sitting beside him, but Jon is burdened with the knowledge that the sweatpants do, in fact, say _spooky_ across the ass. 

“Ghost Hunt UK?” Martin says wryly. “I thought you said they were—”

Jon waves him off before he can repeat whatever choice words past-Jon had to say about Ghost Hunt UK. “Some new partnership of hers. I think she put one in my size on purpose.” 

“Right,” Martin says, not for the first time, but he smiles down at his mug. “Here you are,” he says, holding out the other mug. 

“Tha—Oh.” Jon wraps his hands around the mug, warmth seeping into his fingers, but his eyes catch on Martin’s hair. It’s still damp, but toweling it dry has restored a bit of life to it, so that the curls can be seen again. But something’s different. “You’ve got a—” He reaches out to pluck at it without thinking. “A bit of a white streak. That wasn’t there before.”

“I do?” Martin’s hand flies upwards, accidentally knocking into Jon’s. They both abruptly drop their hands. Martin clears his throat. “Is that what that was all about, then?” he says. “Some...killer hair salon dimension?” 

A fog-filled maze of white corridors that a woman is definitely still trapped in is very serious and not a joke. Definitely not. But Jon still smiles despite himself. “They could have at least done the lot of it,” he says. “I hope you didn’t leave a tip.”

“In this economy? Jon, I’m not a monster.”

Oh. _Oh._ Something unfurls in Jon’s chest—maybe the tension he’d been holding there like a knot, or maybe just something that’s ready to bloom. Martin is M. His M, with the sharp sense of humor and the unfailing ability to make him laugh, even when he tries not to. Which he _knew_. Logically he knew that, it certainly tormented him for long enough, but this is the first time he’s really feeling it. The first time it’s felt real. 

“I have to give my statement,” Jon says almost shyly, fidgeting with his mug. “I thought you might like to hear it.”

Martin blinks. “Oh, alright,” he says. “Sure.” He’s confused, a little flustered, but that’s good. It’s charming, and Jon is able to maintain his confidence long enough to get the tape recorder set up, a fresh tape labeled JONATHAN SIMS with the date printed neatly beside it. It feels too impersonal to sit in his office on either side of his desk like it’s an interview, so he drags Sasha’s chair over to Martin’s desk and they sit facing one another, the tape recorder sitting on the desk, waiting, like it always has, to listen. 

Jon leans forward, sitting with one foot tucked underneath him, and hesitates, his finger resting on the record button. The recording starts with a soft click. 

“Statement of Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist at the Magnus Institute, London,” he says, his voice falling into the familiar pattern of recording, “regarding falling in love with Martin Blackwood.”

He hears Martin’s breath catch but it’s too late to lose his nerve. All that time wasted agonizing over what he would say. He should have known that it would always end up being a statement somehow. He smiles just a little, but there’s no time to think about that now. There’s a lot he still has to say.

“Statement begins.”

*

“...Statement ends.”

Martin is very aware of his hands. 

His hands, sitting in his lap, loosely curled around his mug, which is half-empty and still lukewarm. He’s been staring at them for the better part of thirty minutes, too afraid that if he watches Jon give the statement, he won’t be able to look away again. Just Jon’s voice when he’s reading a statement is enough to hold Martin in place, nearly holding his breath so as not to miss a word. 

That, and it may have to do with the fact that Jon is talking about him. 

He hears the tape click off and they sit in silence for a moment, like the aftermath of a storm. 

Then Martin’s shoulders begin to tremble.

“Martin, are you—” Jon starts. “Are you _laughing?_ ”

“Not—not _at_ you.” Martin looks up and Jon’s face is so incredulous that it tips him over from barely contained giggles to full body wheezing. He has to set his mug on the desk to keep from spilling it all over his lap. “I just—how is this our _life?_ It’s ridiculous.”

“Oh, the foggy nightmare zone was all well and good, but this is ridiculous?” Jon says, but he’s struggling to hide a smile, the stuffy archivist persona rapidly falling apart. Martin’s always loved when that happens—when he loses his grip on who he’s supposed to be and starts being who he _is_. It always makes his heart skips a bit, and this time Martin lets it. He lets it and it doesn't hurt because—

“I can’t believe you told a tape recorder that you love me,” Martin scoffs, his cheeks warm. “You don’t think Elias listens to those, do you? God, I hope not.”

It’s a joke, so he doesn’t expect it when Jon cringes. “Well,” he says sheepishly. “You did say it to me quite a bit ago. Even if I was too dense to realize it.”

Martin feels the blood drain from his face as his soul leaves his body. “I told you that I’m in love with my boss,” he whispers. 

“Your insufferable boss,” Jon adds mildly. 

“Your words, not mine!” Martin hides his face behind his hands. “I’m going back to the hell dimension, thank you! It’s been fun, but that’s the only option!”

Jon laughs, so loud and bright that it’s almost startling, coming from him. “Not so funny when it’s _you_ , is it?” He teases.

Martin peeks through his fingers. “You _did_ call yourself homophobic, if memory serves.” 

That does the trick. “Which I’m not,” Jon says quickly, flustered. 

Marin lets his hands drop. “Good, because that’s a bit of deal breaker for me,” he says. His hands fall to his lap and he considers the scene—Jon and the distance between them and the tape on the desk. “So,” he says. “What happens now?”

“Well,” Jon says slowly, his hands in his lap, fussing with his own fingers. “I was wondering if I could take you to dinner?”

*

“Something’s changed,” Tim hisses. “I can feel it.”

“ _Feeling it_ is not empirical evidence, Timothy,” Sasha counters. They’re leaning over Sasha’s desk from opposite sides, Tim’s hands planted on a pile of paperwork, their heads bent together like they’re in a war room. 

“Then why were they both late the other morning?” Tim says, raising his eyebrows. “Hmm? They were together. Bet you anything.”

Sasha shoots him a look. “You know Jon doesn’t like it when you make jokes like that.”

“It’s not a joke! I don’t care if they were knitting doilies—”

“Who’s knitting doilies now?”

They sit up so fast they nearly crack their heads together, rushing to put together some approximation of innocence. It’s an awkward tableau. Sasha has six windows of the Google homepage pulled up on her computer screen while Tim leans one elbow on the desk with the other hand on his hip, which might have worked if the desk were a little taller. Instead Tim is forced to bend at a nearly ninety degree angle. Martin takes it all in with a frown. 

“Me! New hobby,” Tim says with a blinding grin. “Any tips?” 

“He’s got the talent for it,” Sasha adds. “Ask him to bring some in sometime— _ow! Tim!”_ She hisses as he less than subtly steps on her foot. 

“Right…” Martin says with a little smile. At least they’re communicating out loud this time, he supposes. He doesn’t know why he ever thought that would mean he’d know what they were talking about. “I didn’t get burnt, did I? This is a new shirt.” He twists around, trying to find scorch marks under his collar. 

Honestly, when the tape recorder caught on fire this afternoon in the middle of Jon taking a statement from a young woman, no one had even been particularly surprised. Relieved that it wasn’t grubs this time, maybe, but not surprised. He does wish the archives didn’t still smell so much like burnt plastic though.

“Looks perfect, Martin,” Sasha says. “Yellow is really your color.”

“Very smart. I love the hair too. Very interesting,” Tim agrees. “Bit dressy for work, actually. Say, do you have any plans toni— _ow! Sasha!”_

“Thank you,” Martin says, smug as a cat as he neatly sidesteps the question as well as Sasha’s desk, where Tim is trying to yank his foot out from under her heel. His eyes flicker upward to the clock on the wall and his heart drops. “Is that really the time? I wasn’t scraping melted plastic off the table _that_ long. Did we forget to change it again?” Of course the archives wouldn’t allow them a digital clock that wasn’t constantly losing time anyway. He doesn't dare think about how lucky they are to have computers down there, lest they stop working too. 

Sasha checks her phone. “Going on 5:30.” She gives him a sideways look. “Have someplace to be?” She adds innocently. Tim vindictively tries to stop on her foot but she's too fast for him. 

“Oh _shit_.” Martin drags his hands down his face. “Not again—Jon!”

The door to Jon’s office flies open at the same moment and the man himself stumbles out, wrestling with the zipper of his bag. “I know, I’m coming, just—hold on.” He gives the zipper a savage yank.

“They’re going to blacklist us if we’re late for our reservation again,” Martin says, exasperated.

“I know, I know—oh good Lord, what did you do to yourself?” Jon frowns and abandons the zipper in lieu of fussing with Martin’s collar, smoothing it back down where Martin had flipped it up. Martin feels his cheeks warm of their own accord, but carefully avoids looking over at Tim and Sasha, however much he desperately may want to. He’s fairly certain Sasha’s mouth is hanging open. 

“I’m not the one with molten plastic in my hair,” Martin says, plucking a bead of dried plastic where it’s hanging on for dear life to the end of Jon’s hair. “Is that a fashion choice?” 

“That depends. Is it working?” Jon’s voice is dry but his mouth quirks upwards in a smile. “Right. We should go. The mediocre Italian food blacklist awaits.”

Jon takes his hand and Martin’s heart trips again, like it always does, even if it’s getting a bit embarrassing now. Jon keeps doing that—taking his hand and holding it like he’s still Martin’s anchor to reality, or like his hand his cold, or like maybe he just _likes_ it. The thought makes his heart fumble all over again. Really, it’s shocking that Tim and Sasha haven’t caught them before now, but it’s worth it for the looks on their faces as they try and absolutely fail not to stare. 

“Good luck with those doilies, Tim,” Martin says cheerfully, with a jaunty little wave. “Let me know how it goes.”

“Right,” Tim says faintly, “will do.”

“Doilies?” Jon murmurs as they make for the elevator, still fussing with the strap of his bag with his free hand. 

“Bad cover story,” Martin murmurs back. “Make sure to ask him about it.” Maybe not entirely fair to torture him--this _was_ Tim's doing in convoluted, roundabout, largely terrible way--but it'll be good for him. Maybe he'll even take up knitting after all. 

The elevator doors slide open with a soft _ding_ and they step inside, only for Martin to lean over and press his fingers against the door open button.

“What are you doing?” Jon asks.

“Wait for it.” 

There’s a beat of silence and then a burst of furious whispering that floats down the hall.

_”I told you! I told you something was different!”_

_”You did not know that was going to happen!”_

_”I could feel it—”_

Martin grins and releases the button, letting the doors slide closed. “Sorry,” he says. “Had to hear that.” He turns back to find Jon standing very close, their hands still linked between them. “Oh, hello,” he says, before Jon kisses him.

It’s not on the seaside or on a windswept moor or even in a foggy hell dimension, breaking the spell of loneliness with true love’s kiss. It’s in an elevator that smells like burnt plastic and Jon is mussing up his shirt collar again, but Martin doesn’t mind. It’s not something from a romance novel, but it just might be something you write poetry about.

“Sorry,” Jon says, his fingertips still resting shyly against Martin’s collar. “I’ve just been...thinking about that.”

“Well,” Martin says, his cheeks pink and his heart somewhere in the sky above London, too buoyant to be coaxed back down, “I suppose you’d better do it again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised that the hellzone would be worth it, didn't I? didn't I?! it was a long road but we got there together!! 
> 
> _technically_ speaking this is the last chapter, but there is an epilogue coming! so stay tuned for that. all I'll say is that its 100% a fun time and that tim and sasha get the tables turned on them a bit (; 
> 
> thank you SO MUCH for reading, and all the comments and enthusiasm!! I've had such a great time writing this fic, I'm glad y'all have to!! <3
> 
> as always, you can also find me on tumblr a [divineatrophy](https://divineatrophy.tumblr.com/), twitter at [blueskiddoodle](https://twitter.com/blueskiddoodle), and in a small jam jar in the back of your pantry.


End file.
